Brace yourself for a major shakeup involving the Edmonton Oilers.

NHL sources told Metro yesterday the Oilers are poised to complete a significant trade and/or fire coach Craig MacTavish, likely this week.

“They (the Oilers) have come nowhere close to what they expected to be this season and (club chief) Kevin Lowe is extremely annoyed,” an NHL source said. “Kevin’s just about ready to pull the trigger.”

The Oilers were supposed to be a contender this season. Oddsmakers reckoned they’d likely qualify for the playoffs. Yet they’ve turned out to be inconsistent, at best, and are below .500.

Pre-season prognostications predicting prolific production from the Oilers’ forwards are proving false and it’s actually defencemen leading the team in scoring.

Edmonton players are bracing themselves for changes, but defenceman Sheldon Souray hopes MacTavish isn’t affected.

“It’s not Mac’s fault,” Souray said. “It’s up to the guys here to bring a little more and be a little more accountable for our production.”

MacTavish is in his eighth season as the Oilers’ coach. Only two of his counterparts – the Buffalo Sabres’ Lindy Ruff (11 seasons) and the Nashville Predators’ Barry Trotz (10) – have coached their NHL teams longer than MacTavish.

• From the hard-to-believe department comes information of a mind-boggling bidding war for pitcher A.J. Burnett, who is 31, injury-prone and has started 30 games in a season only twice.

The Blue Jays would like to re-sign the right-hander, but they won’t come close to matching offers made by the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Baltimore Orioles, Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies.

When all’s said and done, Burnett will collect a guaranteed $85- to $90-million U.S. for five seasons. Unbelievable, eh?

• Syndicated baseball columnist Tracy Ringolsby listed Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi as one of his top turkeys for a U.S. Thanksgiving Day piece last week.

Why?

“For continuing to moan about the struggles of competing in a division that includes the free-spending Yankees and Red Sox while Tampa Bay, with the second-lowest payroll, was winning the American League East.”

• The Milwaukee Brewers are dumping Quebec-born reliever Eric Gagne, who compiled a 5.44 earned-run average last season and lost the closer's role in May. . .The Red Sox are adding two quality Japanese pitchers – 22-year-old Junichi Tazawa and 33-year-old Kenjin Kawakami. . .Boston’s also hot to trot after star first baseman Mark Texeira. . .And the Jays still covet slugger Milton Bradley, although they have yet to talk dollars with him -- and he’s leaning toward a deal with the Rays.

Marty York is Metro's national sports columnist as well as an instructor at the College of Sports Media in Toronto. He can be heard regularly on Vancouver radio station CKNW with Sportstalk host Dan Russell. Contact Marty at marty.york@metronews.ca