NHL game time

SHARKS at OILERS 7: 30 p.m.

Media: 630 CHED, TSN

Go to edmontonjournal.com for game live-blog

Tom Renney says he's "mad as hell but there's not much I can do about it right now."

You can interpret that coach-speak a couple of ways.

Either the Edmonton Oilers coach is running out of buttons to push with this group, which has 20 points out of the last 70 on the table after its 8-2-2 start caught everybody's attention, not just around here but around the country.

Or Renney can only do so much with what he's got. He needs help but, frankly, his hands are tied. This team has injuries (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Tom Gilbert and Ryan Whitney) which hurts its ability to get the puck up the ice and out of danger, but it isn't nearly good enough.

The Oilers are 29th in a 30-team league. There is no cavalry coming for Renney or anybody else on his coaching staff, who have their contracts up at the end of this season. As somebody suggested Sunday, the coaches are hanging from the edge of a cliff with all the losses lately (20 in the last 25 games) in a rebuilding process that is going backward, not forwards, right now.

The general manager, Steve Tambellini, who also doesn't have a contract past this season, is shuffling deck chairs right now, sending three players - defenceman Colten Teubert and forwards Josh Green and Ryan O'Marra - to the American Hockey League farm team at Oklahoma City while bringing back three more - defenceman Taylor Chorney plus forwards Lennart Petrell and Teemu Hartikainen, who didn't make it in time for Sunday's practice but are all expected to play Monday against the San Jose Sharks.

They are all good men, for sure, but are they going to get the Oilers out of this deep, dank hole? Probably not. This is nibbling around the edges stuff.

Hartikainen has 19 points in 29 games on the farm team, Petrell had four points in nine games after he was sent down, and Chorney has 11 points in 25 games. They were coming in from Cleveland, where Oklahoma City beat Lake Erie (the Colorado Avalanche affiliate) 3-1 on Saturday.

Teubert has been in over his head on the blue-line for some time now, and not just because he was minus-three in the first period against the Calgary Flames on Saturday. Green and O'Marra are honest workmen who never cheat their team when they're on the ice.

Chorney can move the puck better than Teubert from the back end, something the Oilers certainly need because it's often looked like a fire drill inside their blue-line the last while. Petrell can kill a penalty, for sure. Hartikainen didn't do enough in a brief audition earlier this month on the road, in large part because he was tuckered out, playing four games in four nights between the minors and the NHL, but the Oilers need his size and see him in time as a top-nine forward.

Again, there are no NHL trades, however; nothing to really help out the coach.

Unrestricted free agent Ales Hemsky is still here, but Hemsky is going somewhere in the next month. Would the Oilers trade struggling winger Magnus Paajarvi to the Los Angeles Kings for goalie Jonathan Bernier, who never gets any starts behind Jonathan Quick? After all, the Oilers have a 39-year-old starter Nikolai Khabibulin and Devan Dubnyk hasn't done enough to prove he can be a No. 1 in time.

Renney continues, publicly, to be a Good Humour Man most days. Behind closed doors, he's not as cheery.

"They've seen me upset at them and they've seen things fly around the room," he said.

Would it be right to say he's major ticked?

"That Renney's pissed off. You can write that," he said with a laugh.

Are some players cutting corners?

"Yeah, some are," he said.

Do some players look like they're working, but they're not?

"Yeah," said Renney.

Renney doesn't like airing dirty laundry in front of a microphone, so there were no names given.

The inevitable "coach's job is in jeopardy" talk has started, although Taylor Hall steadfastly says the team is solidly on Renney's side.

"I don't think that would change anything around here ... we like playing for Tom," said Hall.

Renney has lost coaching jobs with the Vancouver Canucks and New York Rangers in the past. He's a good coach but knows the drill. He likes the idea of going through "tough times and embracing them," but this a torture test.

"We (coaches) put in the time, there's no question about that, and we believe strongly in our philosophy as a coaching staff and in each other," Renney said about Ralph Krueger, Kelly Buchberger, Steve Smith and Fred Chabot.

"Yeah, the players have to be perform better and respect the effort that's going on in their behalf, but we have to measure up, too.

We can't fall into the trap of being frustrated or selfish, doing anything that may be disruptive."

Renney feels for where the team is right now and how they're being perceived.

"I can't control in the deepest part of their hearts how they feel about their situation ... all I can do is exhibit perseverance and commitment and work habits, accepting this challenge," he said. "As you try to grow something, boy, there's times when it's tough. As I said last year, you don't pee on your garden to try and grow stuff. You fertilize it."

Hall didn't come out to talk to the media after Saturday's 6-2 loss to Calgary, rare for him.

"I was just frustrated with the way things have been going and was worried I'd say something I wouldn't normally say. Sometimes it's best to let it go," said Hall, who was tickled by the quick start to the season.

"Our season has either been high or low and we've been in a low for a while now, the last 25 games," he said. "I'm sure lots of people weren't expecting our start and I'm sure lots weren't expecting these last 25, either. Everyone is frustrated. We all want to make it right for us, the fans.

"We have to start winning to get some respect for ourselves. Winning 30 out of the last 35 (to make the playoffs) is kind of out of the question, but we want something in here to be proud of."