[browna]

I do feel a slight bit sorry for MacTavish.

I think he did inherit a mess, and also got a bit hoowinked by Lowe, like so many others have, telling him the grass is nice and green, when its actually dead. (extra points for identifying the Oilers poster from a decade ago who said that as it related to Calgary) Marginalizng the issues, downplaying the bad things etc to get MacT on board initially.

Recall, he has history with Lowe, and not positive. His contract was up at the end of the 2005-6 regular season, and the Oilers had to pick up the option by the end of the regular season. Lowe didn't, so MacTavish was around for only as long as the Oilers were in the playoffs. Of course, they get to a period and a half away from winning the Cup (shiver) and thus Lowe had no choice but to bring back MacTavish. Of course Lowe then opened the vault for marginal players like Pisini and Horcoff as well, while waving by to Pronger, another guy Lowe duped.

Lowe brings him back as GM years after finally letting him go (for the Renney/Quinn "what a great idea Kevin, let me pat myself on the back" experiment) to do some dirty work and day to day stuff. Lowe also knowing the landmines that he's set for his GM; after Lowe decides on Eakins at the last minute, its MacT who has to hurredly fire Kruger awkwardly.

MacT knows he can't make any trades because no agent wants to talk to them, because their clients won't go there. Other teams don't bother talking to the Oilers because the teams know players the Oilers will want, won't waive NTC's.

Then, Lowe catches wind of the Snets and TSN's of the world starting to write articles after the team is losing 8 or 9 games, and figures he has to appear to that same media that the organization is responding. A so called forensic audit that took what, 36h?

Then, he throws MacT in front of the wolves, both in an attempt to put out the firestorm.

I think MacT's simply towing the company line today, and whether he believes what he is saying or not, just doing what Lowe's telling him to do and say (thus some of the outrageous comments heard today), but a couple breaths later, he can't bite his tounge any longer and things slip out.

He says he has to stick with the plan, and that's only because the Oilers don't want to be paying three head coaches, MacT knows they can't acquire impact players through the trade thanks to the hole Lowe has put them in for almost a decade.

He did not look comfortable or ready...such a hastily prepared presser just reeks of Lowe setting this all up as some sort of band-aid solution to the media uproar.