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Edmonton, AB (SportsNetwork.com) - The Edmonton Oilers fired head coach Dallas Eakins on Monday. Eakins was in just his second season with the perennially rebuilding Oilers, who reside in the Western Conference basement with a 7-19-5 record. They are tied with the Carolina Hurricanes for the fewest points in the league at 19. General manager Craig MacTavish will take over the coaching duties on an interim basis before transitioning the team over to Todd Nelson, who joins the staff as an assistant coach. MacTavish, who coached the Oilers for eight seasons from 2000-09, will hand the reins to Nelson once he is comfortable. Nelson was in his fifth season coaching the Oilers American Hockey League affiliate in Oklahoma City. The Barons made four playoff appearances under Nelson, including two trips to the conference finals. Eakins dismissal comes as the Oilers are in a free fall, having lost 15 of their last 16 games (1-11-4). I had no good reason to do this other than performance, MacTavish said. Edmonton went 29-44-9 last season under Eakins, who landed his first NHL head coaching job on the strength of a four-year stint directing the Toronto Marlies, the top minor league affiliate of the Maple Leafs. Eakins was the Oilers fourth head coach since MacTavishs run. Edmonton hasnt reached the playoffs since losing to the Hurricanes in the 2006 Stanley Cup Finals. Kevin Durant Jersey . They say things like "stress is when you dont know what youre doing" and "I wasnt hired to motivate players, I was hired to coach motivated players." They ring as true now as they did when Mularkey heard them the first time playing tight end for the Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Fame coach 25 years ago. Deonte Burton Thunder Jersey . New York secured second place in the Metropolitan Division when the Philadelphia Flyers lost at Tampa Bay later Thursday. The Rangers will face either the Flyers or Columbus in the opening round of the post-season. The Rangers struggled throughout against the lowly Sabres and goalie Matt Hackett, who played in just his seventh NHL game of the season. https://www.thunderrookiesshop.com/Lugue...Edition-Jersey/. But the young forward is more than willing to shed a little blood if thats what it takes to make the team this season. "It caught me pretty good, dazed me for that shift, but I didnt want to be off the ice for too long," he said after practice, his lip still bleeding a little despite the plastic stitches holding it together. Chris Paul Thunder Jersey .J. Fair didnt have many chances to be the main option for Syracuse last season. Darius Bazley Jersey . The Flames are in the midst of a six-game slide (0-5-1), their longest losing streak since an 0-6-3 skid from Jan. 11-28, 2010. They havent won since Nov. 3 in Chicago and most recently went winless on a three-game homestand.The jury is in. Manchester United Football Club finds David Moyes guilty of guiding them to their worst season in 25 years. Until now, none of us really knew what the clubs owners thought about the whole mess that has been the 2013/14 season. Make no mistake, despite his sacking, Moyes is far from the only reason for Uniteds dismal campaign, but his departure means he is the main culprit. In the end his final chapter, fittingly, took place at Goodison Park, a place of happiness for Moyes, his home as a football manager for 11 years, where he had been seen as the major architect for overachievement. On Sunday, marshaling a team in red, rather than blue, he was suddenly the architect of underachievement. Yes, the season had been poor and had exposed some players for what they were but, with less than a month remaining in the season, United were absolutely pathetic at Goodison Park, leaving many to ponder whether any signs of improvement would ever come under the first year manager. At Everton he was the big fish in the small pond, paid more money than any player and relied upon by owner Bill Kenwright to make average players good and good players, very good. His record against the leagues top clubs was poor but that was when the blame was placed on the players. They werent quite that good to topple the best of the rest, we were told. It was a resume that got the attention of others. Last April, Sir Alex Ferguson called his fellow Scotsman while he was out shopping with his wife and asked him to come to his house immediately. Moyes admitted later that he thought he wanted to speak to him about one of his Everton players. In the end, the only signing taking place was Moyes, handpicked by Ferguson to take over the monumental task that was Manchester United. A year on it is fair to say that Fergusons choice of Moyes can be put under the same category of many of his last few signings at the club. British, expensive and nowhere near a level that a club like United should strive for. Ferguson did many things right at Old Trafford but he is also made mistakes and the sacking of Moyes now means his hiring of him is one of the biggest he made. In Moyes he clearly saw traits he admired, traits he believed were similar to his own but the football club was at a much different stage than it was at when he took over in 1986. Uniteds first colossal error in a long-line of them in the past 12 months was not conducting a deep, thorough search for Fergusons successor. Within that search they needed to evaluate everything, including a look at their own results which showed, despite winning the Premier League last season, a decline in their status as a top club in European football, highlighted by how they performed against the big six clubs in England (Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Man City, Tottenham) and in European competitions. In the three seasons of 2008/09, 2009/10, 2010/11, United played 70 of these big game matches. They won 45, drew 18 and lost 17 for a very impressive win percentage of 64 per cent. During this time they went to the Champions League final TWICE and lost in the quuarter-finals on away goals to a team called Bayern Munich.dddddddddddd Over the last three seasons (2011/12, 2012/13, 2013/14) United have now played 70 of these big game matches. They have won 28, drew 16 and lost 26 for a very disappointing win percentage of 40 per cent. Their worst performance in the Champions League in the three previous seasons (QF) was now considered a success. Much of this was down to Ferguson. He ignored the warning signs when teams like Basel and Benfica humiliated them in the Champions League, sending them into the 2012 Europa League where they were given a tactical, technical masterclass in their own stadium by European lesser lights Ajax and Athletic Bilbao. During this era, Ferguson and his staff signed many average players, throwing the same 80 million pounds he received for Cristiano Ronaldo on Bebe, Ashley Young, Chris Smalling, Phil Jones, Shinji Kagawa and Wilfried Zaha. Domestically United bullied their way past far inferior teams in the Premier League but across Europe the elite got further and further away. This is what Moyes inherited and that was exactly why he was the wrong man for the job. When United struggled, much of the blame went towards the players initially. Gradually the pendulum of blame swung towards the manager but it took much longer than it would at most clubs and thats because outsiders were not sure what some insiders were starting to find out. By hiring Moyes, an unproven manager in big games and with no experience with genuine world class players, United were able to shield their manager from the usual tirade of criticism because no one quite knew just how good he was. If Jose Mourinho, for example, had been given the job and they failed, then the players were completely at fault. By going down the Moyes route, United took longer to identify their issues. In truth, they still may not know them all, completely. What Moyes has done for them is show them just how poor some of their players can be for long stretches of a season. This can never be solely blamed on a manager and United would be best served to use this season as evidence to move aside a number of players at the club. Some will say those players have let Moyes down but, ultimately, the game is about what they believe, not what fans or media believe and it was clear from a very early stage that they had very little faith in their manager to turn it all around. Once he lost the players, he lost his job. He departs a club at a crossroads in their journey towards success at the highest level. This past season they have lost too many football games. They lost their ruthless, attacking identity. They lost a spot in next years Champions League. In the process they were perilously close to losing their status as a genuine big club on the pitch. Instead, they chose to lose their manager. It is time for United to aim higher and grab world class talent when shopping for new players and, now, a new manager. Their naivety in those areas has led to this point and for a club like Manchester United there should be no lower point than what has happened this season. ' ' '