Oilers' Chiarelli has no intentions of firing McLellan

Coaching is not the Edmonton Oilers' issue in the eyes of general manager Peter Chiarelli.

With his club spiraling out of control, having lost six of its last seven contests, Chiarelli insists he has not considered making changes behind the bench.

"I have no intentions of firing Todd (McLellan). I want to work with the coach, and I think he's a very good coach," Chiarelli said, according to Sportsnet's Mark Spector. "As far as Todd goes, and (his staff), I am not considering firing them. At this point we're going to solve it together."

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Of course, with the team currently sitting eight points out of the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference - after reaching the second round on the back of the fourth-best record in the West last season - Chiarelli understands that his job could be just as much in jeopardy as the head coach's.

"Everyone is under evaluation, including myself," Chiarelli said. "We've had our challenges from a coaching perspective, and we've had our challenges from a player personnel perspective. We went into the season with certain expectations, and we're not even close to them.

"I see the situation we're in. I see levels of improvement, but I also see the losses piling up," Chiarelli said. "There's a plan in place, and a plan to bring up through the ranks, at the proper time, younger players."

With a potential plan to give a chance to younger players and the coach's job safe for the time being, it will be interesting to see if that means changes will come to the current roster.

Until then this Oilers club will need to figure a way to climb from the depths of the Western Conference if it has any aspirations of salvaging the season.