Opinion | Trade for a goalie. Mike Babcock behind the bench. The crashing Oilers have to try something

It’s worse in Montreal and Ottawa. It was worse in Vancouver.

You could even argue that a lousy start to the regular season in Toronto generated an uglier vibe than the painful slump currently being experienced by the Edmonton Oilers.

But the Maple Leafs pulled out of that early tailspin, and the Canucks are now not only the hottest team in hockey under Bruce Boudreau, but started this week having pulled to within three points of Edmonton.

Given that the Oilers began with 16 wins in their first 21 games and looked to be the best team on Canadian soil, it’s no wonder their fans are looking at the standings these days in utter disbelief.

This being Canada, a country of 35 million hockey coaches, the focus of much of the unhappiness in the Alberta capital is naturally head coach Dave Tippett. There’s seemingly a social media split in what once called itself the City of Champions, between those who want Tippett gone and those who argue instability behind the bench (eight coaches since 2010) is part of what ails this organization.

Tippett is the target for many reasons. He’s in the last season of a three-year contract, he’s coming off being swept in the first round of the playoffs, and he had guided his team to nine straight defeats (Edmonton was 2-0 last month under Glen Gulutzan when Tippett was sidelined by COVID-19) going into Monday night’s game in Manhattan against the Rangers.

Even worse for Tippett, it’s been a year in which coaching changes have produced immediate improvement.

We all know about the wild success of “Bruce, there it is!” in Vancouver. Mike Yeo is 5-2-2 in Philly since replacing Alain Vigneault. Derek King, meanwhile, is 10-8-2 in Chicago, a club that had one victory when he took over from Jeremy Colliton. Winnipeg, finally, has won two straight under Dave Lowry, appointed interim head coach after Paul Maurice resigned on Dec. 17.

That wonderful start in Edmonton made it seem like a few off-season alterations had drastically improved the Oilers. Warren Foegele was acquired from Carolina for defenceman Ethan Bear, Zach Hyman signed as a free agent, and two-time Norris Trophy winner Duncan Keith came north from Chicago for young defenceman Caleb Jones and a conditional draft pick this June.

But the goaltending remained mediocre, Foegele got himself into a terrible slump, Hyman went goal-less in eight straight after scoring 11 goals in his first 21 games, and Keith is, well, 38 years old and not the player he once was. Goalie Mike Smith, meanwhile, missed 27 of the first 32 games and was hurt again in New Jersey on the weekend.

So, the terrific start was an illusion. Compared to last year, the Oilers are about the same offensively and a half-goal worse defensively. Facing American competition again hasn’t agreed with them after registering a nifty .705 winning percentage last season in the all-Canadian North Division. The next four Oilers home games have been postponed, which means the chance to use home ice to get back to winning is off the table for now.

The current woes could, of course, be turned around quickly, as happened in both Toronto and Vancouver. The immediate question is whether Tippett will get the opportunity to be the coach who turns it around.

He was behind the bench Monday against the Rangers, with many questioning whether he would still be there Wednesday in a near-empty Scotiabank Arena against the Leafs.

Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are still the best one-two offensive punch in the game, so the answer either lies in getting more out of the rest of the roster — with Tippett or somebody else at the helm — or changing the roster. GM Ken Holland doesn’t have a lot of chips to play. Evan Bouchard and Jesse Puljujarvi are talented young players. Edmonton has its 2022 first-rounder to move, but that’s a big risk given the current arc of the team. Still, there are those who would trade it right now for a rental such as Montreal’s Ben Chiarot, if that’s a possibility.

In terms of coaching options, there’s Mike Babcock, whose shortcomings in Toronto before he was fired were wildly exaggerated. He’s out there with obvious connections to Holland from their days in Motown.

Vigneault also has loads of experience, as does Claude Julien, now scheduled to coach Canada in Beijing next month. Gulutzan has NHL experience, and Bakersfield Condors coach Jay Woodcroft took his team to a championship of sorts last season, winning the season-ending AHL Pacific Division tournament.

There also might not be anything so terribly wrong with Edmonton that a hot goalie couldn’t fix.

Everybody in Alberta remembers what Dwayne Roloson did for a similarly talented but underachieving squad led by Chris Pronger in 2006. But is a suitable netminder out there for Holland to get? Some have mentioned Chicago’s Marc-André Fleury, but he makes $7 million (U.S.) per season and is an unrestricted free agent after this season. He’d be an expensive rental. Braden Holtby, Joonas Korpisalo and Linus Ullmark are other names that have been circulated, but there’s no guarantee any would be better than what the Oilers already have.

Staying the course just doesn’t seem to be an option. Given the unbalanced structure of the roster, there’s nothing about this Oilers team that offers much confidence that it won’t crash in the playoffs again without a significant change of some kind.

But what’s the change, and when? Hardcore Oilers fans believe McDavid and Draisaitl should be leading a new golden age in Edmonton. Fighting for a playoff spot was not the way this season was supposed to unfold.

Damien Cox is a former Star sports reporter who is a current freelance contributing columnist based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @DamoSpin