Mac is a good guy – I hope he catches on in the minors again.

Mair is yet another outstanding fit on the bottom six that won’t get a look from the Oil because of contracts or cap space or hanging on to JF Jacques because he might pan out.

I too wish MacIntyre well, but the writing was on the wall and it was time to make room for reserve players who Pat Quinn trusts enough to put on the ice. As I wrote last Friday:

What does hurt is that on a short-staffed team that has needed help in many different areas — scoring, checking, penalty killing, hitting — MacIntyre has provided pretty much Zero except the occasional glower from the bench or (more often) press box. Why do the Oilers have a guy who the coach refuses to use on the active roster, while Chris Minard, Charles Linglet, Ryan Potulny, Liam Reddox etc. are held down on the farm? Surely any one of those guys would have seen more ice in a single game than MacIntyre has in the season to date. Surely any of them would have put some crooked numbers somewhere on the stat sheet for goodness sake.

Sure enough, on Saturday the Oil recalled Potulny and Reddox, on Sunday both played about 12 minutes (~ double MacIntyre’s total in 4 GP), and as fortune had it, both contributed significantly in crooked numbers — Potulny led the team with 5 shots, Reddox led the squad with 4 hits, both helped out on special teams, and between them they scored 3 points in a 2-goal Oilers win. Can’t be expecting that every night, of course, but the point about MacIntyre is that we couldn’t expect those types of contributions on ANY night. Last night it was Colorado who short-benched themselves with David Koci seeing just 1:49 of ice time, while all 18 Oilers skaters got at least 10 minutes. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that it was the Oil that had the fresher legs in the third.

So now it’s Monday and the Oilers have indeed turned the page on SMac. I’m a little surprised and somewhat gratified to see the theory play out so quickly in real life, but it was past time. Good luck to Steve MacIntyre, who gave us the best he had. Hope to see you around, Steve … just not in Safeway I hope.