It's been a long first season behind the bench for Todd McLellan.
Following a 4-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday, the Edmonton Oilers head coach was fairly blunt about the performance of some of his players.
McLellan, asked about changing the commitment level of some players: "Maybe we have to get rid of some."
— Mark Spector (@SportsnetSpec) February 24, 2016
"The spirit of the team isn't where it needs to be," he continued. "It's got to get better, or we've got to make huge, huge changes.
"There were some (players) who should be embarrassed when they leave here," he added, specifically mentioning defenseman Justin Schultz.
"Pretty disappointing night for him as an individual and it affected the team." - Oilers coach Todd Mclellan on minus 3 Justin Schultz
— Rob Tychkowski (@Sun_Tychkowski) February 24, 2016
The exasperation comes at the end of a day whereupon general manager Peter Chiarelli confirmed the Oilers are sellers heading into the NHL's trade deadline, calling out players who have underachieved.
With the loss, Edmonton sits at the bottom of the NHL standings, and will have a chance at the first overall pick for the fifth time in seven years.
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The Montreal Canadiens attempt to celebrate reaching one million Twitter followers went terribly awry Tuesday night.
As explained on the team's website, fans who followed the team and tweeted using the hashtag "#CanadiensMTL1M" would receive a special video message from a player.
Adding "surprise" to the hashtag gave Twitter users the additional benefit of having their handles depicted on the back of a Canadiens jersey.
Unfortunately, the seemingly innocent promotion was trending for all the wrong reasons when users with racial slurs in their handles began replying, prompting automatic responses from the team's Twitter account.
The Canadiens celebrate one million Twitter followers with a few surprises for you! -> https://t.co/7f0QjBsLT7 pic.twitter.com/8HhIEkod5K
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) February 24, 2016
It was a situation similar to what happened with the New England Patriots in November 2014.
The Canadiens promotion kicked off before 9 p.m. ET on Tuesday, and offensive automated tweets were still rolling out almost 2 1/2 hours later.
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After scoring a late third-period goal to bring the Winnipeg Jets' deficit to one goal against the Dallas Stars on Tuesday, Mark Scheifele simply wanted to jump into the glass in celebration - but he didn't see the referee.
In the end, it was Scheifele who took the worst of the collision, so he shouldn't be worried about facing any further discipline.
Here's a closer view:
Also, for the lols. Scheifele jumps onto the ref after scoring his goal. pic.twitter.com/xq3LKoJ1b8
— Dylan Nadwodny (@dnadders) February 24, 2016
Copyright © 2016 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.