I’m not trying to be mean, just letting you know that hockeydb has Ruff with 330-245-33-48 with a .565 pts% during the concurrent time period mentioned previously. The other thing is that when Ruff has gotten to the playoffs (3 out of 8 years during this era), he has advanced his teams past the first round each time (while MacTavish is also 3 out of 8, he’s only advanced past the first round in 05-06).

Both Ruff and MacTavish have stretches where their teams have missed the playoffs three straight years. The only variable is the removal of Lowe and insertion of Tambellini as GM.

If we use Lain’s timeline from Tyler’s post the other day (see comment five), I think we can assume a few things:

1. After the Pronger trade, the Oilers chose to change their organizational philosophy. That is, from a grinding team which MacTavish took within one win of the Stanley Cup, to a Red Wings-like skilled team.

2. This change in philosophy would have taken four to five years minimum to bring about the desired results. It is easier to win as a defense-first team (every one playing the all-out style for one another; i.e. NJ Devils and Minnesota Wild) than as an offensive team that plays organically. The biggest reason is that you have to change the style of players that you draft and give up on — through trade or release — the players who fit your previous style, while bring in the proper coaching to fit the new philosophy and new players. I think we can agree that Lowe didn’t do that (see Buchberger as head coach in Springfield).

If one and two are true, I think that we can conclude a couple of things: MacTavish shouldn’t have signed the extension after the ‘06 run due to this shift; because of Tambellini moving in as GM, MacTavish wouldn’t have been retained as head coach after his contract ran out (even if he made the playoffs this year) because once there is a GM change, the GM wants his own person in there, for example Darcy Regier firing Ted Nolan and bringing in the aforementioned Lindy Ruff.

Going back to your article Jonathan, Ruff still has a job because Regier and Ruff have stuck to an organizational philosophy and been more successful and gotten along. There has been stasis within the organization.

I’m sorry for the long post. Perhaps in another post, or an update to this one, you can shed more light on the respective special teams play between Ruff and MacTavish-coached teams during their tenures.

I appreciate the work you’re doing here Jonathan. I enjoy the quality and quantity here more than I do at OilersNation. Please keep up the great work.

I agree with Jonathan, MacTavish is not an idiot. The change in philosphy resulted in an inevitable result, both in the standings and in MacTavish’s termination.