There's no question Craig MacTavish is on the hot seat in Edmonton, but expect the Oilers to swing a deal before they fire their long-time head coach.

EDMONTON – Craig MacTavish’s job is officially on the line in Edmonton, as it appears the Oilers head coach is beginning to lose his players’ interest after eight seasons behind the bench.

But a high ranking source within the organization said Thursday that the Oilers will make a trade to try to shake up their lineup before firing their head coach, whose team has struggled out of the gate at 9-10-2 and sits in last place in the Northwest Division.

A veteran Oilers player, who requested anonymity added: "Maybe a trade, then the coach. After this long, a change might be good."

Ideally the trade will move a goaltender – either Mathieu Garon or Dwayne Roloson – a move that could provide a roster shake-up as well as put an end to the three-goalie system that has frozen out Garon and seen prospect Jeff Deslauriers see just five appearances in two months.

None of the goalies can be sent to the minors without clearing waivers.

But with MacTavish in survival mode, any plans to manage the troika have gone out the window. MacTavish has fallen back on the goalie he knows, Roloson, and has started him the past five Oilers games.

Despite the fact that Oilers owner Daryl Katz is not in favour of firing a coach in his first season owning the club, sources admit that Wednesday’s 2-1 home-ice loss to the hapless Los Angles Kings turned up the heat on MacTavish.

With the effort of Oilers players being publicly questioned by both MacTavish and his captains heading into a five-day break prior to the Kings’ visit, the Oilers coaches worked tirelessly on that very aspect.

Team meetings were held by the captains.

Film sessions were held by the coaches.

A collective soul searching took place inside the dressing room.

Then Edmonton took the ice against a Kings team that had been dismantled 6-2 the night before in Calgary – and they stunk the joint out in the 2-1 loss. It was as if the five-day coaching blitz had not even occurred as the Kings out-shot, out-chanced and out-scored Edmonton.

The loss – and the poor effort – sent shock waves through an organization that has never been quick to fire a coach. MacTavish is the third longest-serving current NHL coach behind Buffalo’s Lindy Ruff (12 years) and Barry Trotz (11 years) in Nashville.

The Oilers have missed the playoffs in four of MacTavish’s seven previous seasons.

The lessons taught during that five-day break were not new, MacTavish admitted, rather variations on the same theme MacTavish has been preaching for three months this season.

"How about eight years?" countered MacTavish.

His team has been out-shot in 16 of 21 games this season, and sits 23rd in the NHL averaging 2.52 goals per game. He has a team full of forwards who avoid the hard areas of the ice as if they were plague-infested, and MacTavish’s only answer to a sputtering offence is to go to the dirty places to find more goals.

Unless that message starts to take soon, president of hockey operations Kevin Lowe will be forced to find a new messenger.

"It’s a tough journey, a tough sell for a coach to try and get offensive players to play a more simplistic game, but that's what we need. And we have to demand that commitment from everybody," said MacTavish, the former Oilers centre who won three Stanley Cups in Edmonton, and one more in ’94 with the New York Rangers.

"As long as I've been in the game, that's how you prime the well offensively. You get in there and you get your hands dirty. You go to the areas where you can get a break offensively. We're trying to preach a power game to guys like (Andrew Cogliano) and Bobby Nilsson, and it's not necessarily their game. But that's where you find it."

As is usually the case, this coach’s biggest problems are under-achieving players. The Oilers expected plenty of goals from what was thought to be a deep group of forwards, yet defenceman Sheldon Souray leads the team with seven goals.

"With the exception of Ales (Hemsky, 22 points in 21 games), we've not had a forward who’s really stepped up," MacTavish said. "And we have four or five guys operating below our level of expectation. That’s blindsided us."

Shawn Horcoff has had an abysmal start, with just 11 points. Erik Cole has been a rumour of the player he once was, with seven points in the season’s first quarter.

The Dustin Penner free agent signing is proving a disaster for Edmonton.

He is out of shape and iceberg-slow against NHL competition.

The line of Cogliano, Nilsson and Sam Gagner, successful as rookies last year, has been completely ineffective this season.

"I don’t think anyone is thrilled about our production at this point," admitted Cole. "We’ve got a lot more to give, a lot more to offer. We’ve addressed it as a group: ‘You may think you’re working hard enough, but you’re not.’ You need a little bit of extra effort."

It had better come fast, or MacTavish will be out.