The Two-Line Pass

"What do you mean I'm fi.. Director, you say?"

When you do as poor a job of being your team’s general manager over as many years as Kevin Lowe has, it shouldn’t be a surprise when you lose your job.

And if you work for a competent organization, you’re probably going to be escorted from the building carrying a box with your nameplate sticking out of it. Luckily for Kevin Lowe, the Oilers are not a competent organization.

The Edmonton Oilers have announced significant changes to their Hockey Operations Department, naming Kevin Lowe as the team’s President of Hockey Operations.  As President of Hockey Operations, Lowe has named Steve Tambellini as the team’s new General Manager.  In addition, long-time Vice-President of Hockey Operations, Kevin Prendergast, has been named Assistant General Manager.

Lowe, the Oilers’ first NHL draft choice in 1979, has been an integral part of the Oilers, as a player, coach, Executive Vice-President and General Manager for over 25 years.

Tambellini had been the assistant GM with the Canucks, and has been with the organization since 1990. Many Canucks fans were fearful of the day Tambellini, who largely oversaw Vancouver’s drafts the last few years, left the organization to be GM somewhere else. The fact that it’s in the Canucks’ division makes it much, much worse.

My bet: First thing the Oilers do is trade the farm for Jeff Tambellini.

The downside to all this is, of course, that Lowe will no longer be able to feud with Brian Burke.

By the way, here is my favorite part of the press release, which was obviously written by some sort of madman who broke into the Oilers’ offices, subdued everyone with some sort of knockout gas, and typed nonsense into every open Word file on anyone’s computers:

Considered as one of the NHL’s top executives, Kevin most recently helped guide the Oilers to the 2006 Stanley Cup Finals.

If Heath Ledger wasn’t dead, we’d have a prime suspect.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 6:46 pm and is filed under Sum-sum-summertime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.