After eight years, the Edmonton Oilers and head coach Craig MacTavish will be parting ways following the team's third consecutive non-playoff season. The Oilers compiled a 301-252-103 during MacTavish's watch, while also playing in the Stanley Cup Final in 2005-06, losing to the Carolina Hurricanes in seven games.
Weeks of rumors, innuendo, and e5s will finally come to a head on Wednesday. At 3pm Eastern, the NHL trade deadline will pass. You can follow all the activity with our NHL Trade Deadline Tracker.
Entering play Tuesday night, 23 NHL teams are either in a playoff position or within six points of one. While this is great for the playoff races, it's not so good for the deadline. It minimizes the number of potential sellers, drives up the trade market for the few players who should be available, and leaves us wondering if any big deals will go down. Here's a look at how the Western Conference looks heading into the deadline.
If a local Edmonton reporter is correct, the Oilers could be on the verge of one-upping their Western Canada rivals when it comes to "in-season signings."
In the midst of a playoff race in the Western Conference, the Edmonton Oilers have been struggling. They are just 3-5-1 in their last nine games, and they've slipped out of the top eight in the conference. Well, at least for now. The standings are changing pretty much every day.
The news they got Monday won't help them much. Defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky, a key player both in five-on-five play and on special teams, will miss the remainder of the season with a shoulder injury.
For the second game in a row Jamie Langenbrunner scored the game-winner in overtime, leading the Devils to a 4-3 come-from-behind win against Pittsburgh. Langenbrunner has now scored two goals in three consecutive games, while registering seven points.
It's the Devils' eighth win in a row, as they overcame a 3-1 deficit with eight minutes to play in regulation. Brendan Shanahan started the rally for the Devils with a power play goal, while Langenbrunner was credited with the game-tying goal with 30 seconds remaining when his centering pass deflected in off of Ryan Whitney's skate.
There are certainly at least two really good teams in the NHL's Western Conference. Defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit and fast-starting San Jose appear in the clear to duke it out for the right to play for the Stanley Cup later this year.
Of course, we know that anything can happen in a best-of-seven series. In addition, we still have half a season left to play. What we don't know is which team in this conference is set up to challenge either the Red Wings or Sharks. They've beaten - at least once - pretty much everyone who has stood in their way, including each other.
While the top of the conference appears to virtually locked in place at this point, there are still serious battles to be fought, especially for the last four positions in the West. Currently, eight teams are separated by just six points. St. Louis, the last-place team in the West, is just nine points out of eighth.
Marty Turco's awful season continued on Thursday night against Chicago, as the Dallas Stars goalie gave up five goals on 29 shots, as the Stars fell 6-3. After another dismal performance in the crease, Turco finds himself 42nd in the NHL (out of 43) with a 3.67 Goals Against Average, and 43rd with a .867 save percentage. It's difficult to get much worse than that.
Tuesday night's game against Edmonton is probably one that Columbus goalie Pascal Leclaire would like to permanently erase from his memory, seeing as how it's probably the worst game he's ever played in the NHL. Leclaire gave up seven goals on just 19 shots, as the Oilers rolled to a 7-2 victory, snapping a three-game losing streak.
Columbus finished with a commanding edge in the shots department, firing 39 shots at Dwayne Roloson -- he stopped 37 of them -- and still managed to skate away losing by five goals.
Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.
What's Changed: Edmonton finished last year on a 18-10-1 run, so the idea in the offseason was to improve this team. The Oilers made their run on the backs of an assortment of young players, and hopes are high in the Land of Oil for this team. Edmonton brought in Cole from Carolina, giving their top line the punch and experience it needed. Cole will likely work with "veteran" Shawn Horcoff (just turned 30) and the greatly-talented Ales Hemsky on the top line.
The other significant move the Oilers made involved replacing offensive-minded defenseman Pitkanen, who was dealt for Cole. Edmonton packaged Stoll and Greene in a deal for Visnovsky, who was minus-18 last year but on a painfully bad Los Angeles team. He'll make sure that the defensive corps doesn't miss Pitkanen too much.
Outside of those two moves, not much has changed in Edmonton, except that the kids are a year older. Andrew Cogliano (45 points in 2007), Hemsky (71), Sam Gagner (49), Robert Nilsson (41), Kyle Brodziak (31), Tom Gilbert (33), and Dustin Penner (47) all were a big part of the team's late-season resurgence, and Penner - at age 26 - is the oldest of this group. Saying that their best days are ahead of them is an understatement.
``I'm very happy that I'll be staying with this organization for a long time,'' said Visnovsky from his offseason home in Slovakia. ``I love Los Angeles and I want to play in the playoffs with the Kings.''
To take a look at how the trade shakes out for the Oilers, stop over at Lowetide, where the reaction seems uniformly positive, while Covered in Oil seems more than a bit hesitant. In any case, with Visnovsky in the fold, it looks like Joni Pitkanen's days in an Oilers uniform may be coming to an end.
Then again, I'm sure there's at least one party who is probably happy with the deal: That would be Los Angeles-based supermodel Rachel Hunter, who will probably be happy to have her boyfriend, Stoll, back in town a little more often.
Weeks of rumors, innuendo, and e5s will finally come to a head on Wednesday. At 3pm Eastern, the NHL trade deadline will pass. You can follow all the activity with our NHL Trade Deadline Tracker.
A little more than a month ago, the Edmonton Oilers and their fans watched Mats Sundin make his Vancouver Canucks debut in Edmonton. 
In the midst of a playoff race in the Western Conference, the Edmonton Oilers have been struggling. They are just 3-5-1 in their last nine games, and they've slipped out of the top eight in the conference. Well, at least for now. The standings are changing pretty much every day.
For the second game in a row Jamie Langenbrunner scored the game-winner in overtime, leading the Devils to a 4-3 come-from-behind win against Pittsburgh. Langenbrunner has now scored two goals in three consecutive games, while registering seven points. 
There are certainly at least two really good teams in the NHL's Western Conference. Defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit and fast-starting San Jose appear in the clear to duke it out for the right to play for the Stanley Cup later this year.
Marty Turco's awful season continued on Thursday night against Chicago, as the Dallas Stars goalie gave up five goals on 29 shots, as the Stars fell 6-3. After another dismal performance in the crease, Turco finds himself 42nd in the NHL (out of 43) with a 3.67 Goals Against Average, and 43rd with a .867 save percentage. It's difficult to get much worse than that. 
Tuesday night's game against Edmonton is probably one that Columbus goalie Pascal Leclaire would like to permanently erase from his memory, seeing as how it's probably the worst game he's ever played in the NHL. Leclaire gave up seven goals on just 19 shots, as the Oilers rolled to a 7-2 victory, snapping a three-game losing streak. 
Over at Inside the Kings, Rich Hammond pulled the following Lubomir Visnovsky quote out of his archives, one that the defenseman uttered about a year ago when he signed a 5-year, $28 million contract extension with the team:
