‘The performance of the team is on my shoulders’: Edmonton Oilers head coach Todd McLellan

It was one final round of “What went wrong?” for Edmonton Oilers head coach Todd McLellan on Monday as he spoke to media for the final time in the 2017-18 NHL season.

“The performance of the team is on my shoulders. I’m the head coach. I accept responsibility for that,” McLellan said. “I have to look in the mirror first and evaluate what I’m seeing and whether or not I like what I did this season, and what I need to adjust to. That will happen.”

After going 36-40-6, and being well out of the playoff race for most of the season, there’s a lot of speculation about what changes the Oilers will make. McLellan was asked about his assistant coaches, who are Jay Woodcroft, Jim Johnson, and Ian Herbers. McLellan didn’t commit to any of them having a future with the team.

The coaching staff failed to ignite a power play that wound up last in the NHL. The penalty-killing was last most of the season but vastly improved over the final two months.

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The Oilers were also hampered by several players whose performances dropped off from earlier seasons.

“We’re going to look at individuals, their performances, why they were really good, why they weren’t, what impact did we as the coaching staff have on them, how can we help them,” said McLellan. “Then we’ll put pieces together.

“We’ll look at pairs and lines and combinations of players. We’ll look at systematic play, specialty teams, approaches to practice, tempo in practice, drill selection. There’s a whole gamut of review that has to be done.”

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The Oilers were playing catch up all season, winning just three of their first 11 games. McLellan said those results were in sharp contrast to the Stanley Cup predictions coming from many pundits.

LISTEN BELOW: Edmonton Oilers head coach Todd McLellan talks to media about the team’s season

The Oilers thumped the Flames 3-0 in their opening game.

“We took some real gratification in that game,” recalled McLellan, though the Oilers then played only thee times in the next 10 days, losing all three.

“That was the period where I believe it got away on us a little bit.”

McLellan has been the Oilers head coach for the last three seasons, compiling a record of 114-109-23.