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FAILURE WITH A CAPITAL F
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Robin Brownlee
Feb 3, 2015, 16:40 ESTUpdated:
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Dallas Eakins was head coach of the Edmonton Oilers for 113 games. In parts of two seasons, the Oilers won 36 of those games as Eakins compiled a record of 36-63-14 for a point percentage of .380 before he was fired.
Those numbers – wins, losses and percentage of points accumulated of those available — are the bottom line for every NHL coach. It goes with the job. In that regard, Eakins failed miserably. Period. Put up those kinds of numbers, especially in a city with a team that is on its way to missing the playoffs for a ninth straight season, and you lose your job, as Eakins did. End of story. 
I was surprised then, to say the least, to hear Eakins utter not one word that remotely resembled “mea culpa” during a 19-minute segment he did with the Hockey Analytics Show on TSN 1050 last weekend about his time in Edmonton. You can listen to the entire interview, starting at the 26-minute mark, here. 
Matt Henderson offered his thoughts on the Eakins interview this morning, so I won’t go through it line by line as I was going to, but I’ll touch on what stood out for me – specifically, how Eakins didn’t take ownership for his part in the unmitigated failure the Oilers were during his time behind the bench, how he was “sold a bill of goods” and a reference he made to “huge improvements” during his tenure.

WHAT EAKINS SAID

The juiciest quote came off the top when Eakins was asked about his time with the Oilers. Eakins said: “Well, it was interesting. I think the best way to go about it is going back to how it all started. They approached me unexpectedly. I had some other opportunities and was sold a bill of goods to come in and grow and try to push a team in a certain direction . . .”
GM Craig MacTavish and senior vice-president of hockey operations Scott Howson were the guys selling that bill of goods. They’re the ones, especially MacTavish, who dealt with Eakins as he went from being a candidate to become an associate coach to Ralph Krueger to replacing him as head coach.
I’ve got no doubt MacTavish and Howson were pitching the job as a great opportunity for Eakins, so I’m not going to split hairs about his choice of words as being “sold a bill of goods.” Not a biggie to me, unless you’re looking to squeeze every drop of juice you can out of it. I’m not.
Another Eakins quote that caught my ear was: “As much as the record doesn’t show it, I think we made huge improvements from last year to this year on a number of fronts.” Huge improvements? On a number of fronts?
I have more of an issue with a claim of huge improvements by Eakins than I do with the bill of goods bit. What huge improvements? I saw modest bumps in some underlying numbers but if there’s “a number of fronts” where the Oilers made huge gains, I missed them. Framed in that 36-63-14 record, it comes off as overstatement and spin to me.

THE WAY I SEE IT

When Eakins was fired, I wrote that he was set up to fail because MacTavish didn’t provide him with anything resembling the tools he needed to be successful. That item, from Dec. 15, is here. We knew about the lack of proven NHL centres. We knew there wasn’t enough depth on the blue line, even with additions that were made. We knew there were questions in goal. This ongoing failure isn’t just about coaching. This, we know. 
That said, every coach since Pat Quinn and Tom Renney arrived as a tandem in 2009-10 has had to make due with rosters that have been flawed in many ways. Did Quinn have a roster from top to bottom that should have made the playoffs? Did Renney or Krueger? No.
None of them did. Were any of them done in at different times by lousy goaltending, a defense that had holes in it, special teams that were less than stellar or a platoon of pint-sized forwards? The answer, obviously is yes. It’s a matter of degree. I doubt Mike Babcock could have taken any of the teams we’ve seen these last five years into the playoffs.
Given all the above, Eakins did a worse job getting bottom line results than anybody except Quinn, who was 67 when he arrived with Renney as his associate. As head coach, Quinn was 27-47-8 for a .378 point percentage. After taking over from Quinn, Renney went 57-85-22 for .414. Krueger, bounced in favor of Eakins via Skype by MacTavish, was 19-22-7 for .469. Interim coach Todd Nelson, who has had the benefit of some solid roster additions, is 7-6-2 for .533.

BACK TO THE BOTTOM LINE

Eakins believes in advanced stats, and why not? Having more tools at your disposal to accurately track trends and being able to put numbers to who is doing what makes sense. Eakins pushed, as he said in the TSN interview, for the hire of Tyler Dellow. Eakins has embraced the advanced stats community and the advanced stats community has embraced him.
My guess is Dellow, had he not been hired by the Oilers, would have been the first to break down the claim by Eakins the team had made “huge improvements on a number of fronts” on his watch. That’s not going to happen while he’s on the payroll. Instead, we’re getting a lot of emphasis about how Eakins was undermined by bad luck – atrocious goaltending and a feeble shooting percentage, among other things. Nelson has been luckier. It’s a subtle benefit of the doubt, but it’s there.
As Henderson wrote, Eakins didn’t fail because he believes that having possession of the puck and outshooting opponents over time is a good thing, but the fact is he failed nonetheless. Miserably. When it comes to the numbers that matter, the Oilers won just 36 of 113 games under Eakins. Like it or not, that’s the uncomfortable bottom line.

WHILE I’M AT IT

The following quote, regarding Dellow, got a lot of play: “Bringing in Tyler was an interesting process on a number of fronts. And you know it was interesting, because we announced the hiring, immediately we had an email from a journalist to our PR department asking the question, “Is anyone from the organization going to talk about the hiring of this prick?” Right away I was caught off guard, going, I thought, ‘Whoa.’ Like, what’s going on here? There was a bit of a dislike for Tyler. I think it’s probably from his, maybe from his website or his twitter account . . .”
I’m not convinced the characterization of Dellow as a “prick” in a private communication to the Oiler media relations staff reflects as badly on the MSM member who made it – I’m told that’s not the term that was used – as Henderson does.
In any case, it’s certainly not surprising. Dellow has taken more strongly worded runs at media members than that, so he’s going to get some back. Dellow’s work should stand or fall based on merit, whether he’s perceived as the belle of the ball or a prick with MSM types.
If I was the media member in question, I’d want to know how and why a private communication to the media relations department of the Oilers ended up being passed along and used on radio.
Listen to Robin Brownlee Wednesdays and Thursdays from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on the Jason Gregor Show on TSN 1260.
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