Rinse and repeat: Ken Hitchcock can't fix the Oilers' cycle of failure

Few people love to break down every element of the game more than NHL coaches, and even within that subset, few coaches have loved analyzing hockey more than Ken Hitchcock. A one-man Wikipedia for the sport, Hitchcock has a complete resume and his pedigree cannot be minimized.

But, is he the right man to step in and try to salvage the latest in what has become a maddening string of NHL seasons for the Edmonton Oilers? There are doubts, and they're not small ones, either.

This isn't to suggest the NHL game has passed Hitchcock by - it hasn't. The 66-year-old posted a 42-32-8 record in 2017-18 with the Dallas Stars, his second and final stint with the team he led to a Stanley Cup victory in 1998-99. Following that season, Hitchcock sailed off into the sunset and into retirement, almost 20 years after he'd steered them to a championship.

This was hockey synchronicity in a manner most hockey men never experience. Most coaches are unceremoniously shown the door long before they believe their "best before" label says they ought to be. It speaks volumes about the respect Hitchcock has earned.

But here we are today, and the giant embedded emotional and professional tractor beam that comes along with being a coach has pulled Hitchcock back into a job exactly 221 days after his retirement. The Oilers brought him in Tuesday after firing highly respected Todd McLellan the same day, and now, it's truly full circle for the Edmonton native.

In a way, it's admirable to see how deeply he loves his life's work, and how hard it is for him to get it out of his blood. That's what hockey lifers do: they want to be there until their last breath, gliding around on a pad of ice, drawing up the next potential forward combination or set offensive play.

Andy Devlin / National Hockey League / Getty

But the job of good organizations isn't to permit even the most accomplished hockey lifers to stay around until it's clear they've stayed too long. And this is where the Oilers are today. Searching, yet again, for answers for a roster that has one of, if not the greatest player on the planet in Connor McDavid. Edmonton GM Peter Chiarelli, now well beyond his third year on the job, has used one of his remaining credibility bullets (most of the others have been used on trades we'll get to below) to hand the job to Hitchcock and pray he'll succeed where so many have failed since the summer of 2006.

However, if McLellan - who did guide the Oilers to their first playoff appearance since that summer - couldn't find a way to make Edmonton's roster jell and propel consistently, who's to say Hitchcock can? In Hitchcock's almost six years in St. Louis, he had a far better defense corps than Chiarelli has handed him. You can also argue that Hitchcock's Blues had a more balanced group of forwards.

True, Hitchcock hasn't had a player like McDavid since Mike Modano in Dallas - and the reality is, McDavid is a better, faster competitor than he ever was. Now, he's being asked to find a system that makes the most of his star's talent, and will also be tasked with rejuvenating the career of moribund winger Milan Lucic and coach the massive letdown that is Jesse Puljujarvi.

That sounds like an order so tall, only the coaching equivalent of a McDavid could succeed. Instead, the keys are being handed to Hitchcock, almost entirely due to his brand-name recognition. Having a marquee bench boss brought in at this point feels like a shield being applied to the Oilers' issues, the grand majority of which have been created by Chiarelli.

Andy Devlin / National Hockey League / Getty

It wasn't McLellan who signed Lucic to a seven-year, $42-million contract in 2016, nor was it him who put all his marbles behind goalie Cam Talbot; it wasn't McLellan who made the infamous Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson transaction or who moved star Jordan Eberle out of town, with just journeyman Ryan Spooner to show for it.

The footprints on those deals all belong to Chiarelli, the man responsible for sending McLellan overboard. It really should be the GM in Edmonton whom the knives came out for today, not McLellan, who'll be back coaching an NHL team soon enough.

Even with his Hockey Hall of Fame-worthy history, it will most likely be Hitchcock who moves along from this Oilers job relatively soon. He's earned his name by demanding work ethic from his players, but given the state Edmonton's roster is in, Hitchcock's demands of himself would have to include a good deal of miracle work.

Hitchcock doesn't need to be put through the wringer for an extended period at this point in his life, and frankly, Oilers fans don't need to be the wringer for what has been an interminable, unacceptable period. A couple years of trying to untangle this group of players from the mess they're in now will be more than enough for him, and if he can't, he'll either self-extricate from this situation, or the new GM - the next time the Oilers find themselves in this mess, there should be a new GM - will fire him and end his NHL career in more common fashion.

Hitchcock is a hell of a conversationalist, but frankly, the conversation in Edmonton has become so sickeningly familiar, not even he can find a way to put a rhetorical bow tie on an abominable on-ice situation.

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