Ralph Krueger hired to coach the Sabres Part 2
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Krueger talks about the Bills success
#OneBuffalo feels: Sabres' Jack Eichel, Ralph Krueger thrilled by Bills' playoff clincher
Coach Ralph Krueger said he's been regularly texting with McDermott and reached out Monday to both McDermott and owners Terry and Kim Pegula.
"I watched that game and I usually go to bed way earlier than when that game ended," Krueger said. "We're always giving each other some kind of push. Both of us are out here trying to make the Buffalo sports community proud and they've really done that with what they've achieved and we're trying to continue to do that."
Krueger said he loved seeing the Bills used the word "connected" in some of their postgame interviews Sunday in Pittsburgh. It's a buzzword he's used with the Sabres and the phrase "Play Connected" has been on the dressing room wall since training camp.
"There's a lot of parallels right now between the Bills and Sabres," Krueger said. "Sean and I are passionate here to get the sports community back on the track it deserves to be on for the passion that's in the area. It's a lot of fun. Both of us are having a lot of fun in our work. ... I watched every second, every minute, every snap yesterday."
#OneBuffalo feels: Sabres' Jack Eichel, Ralph Krueger thrilled by Bills' playoff clincher
Coach Ralph Krueger said he's been regularly texting with McDermott and reached out Monday to both McDermott and owners Terry and Kim Pegula.
"I watched that game and I usually go to bed way earlier than when that game ended," Krueger said. "We're always giving each other some kind of push. Both of us are out here trying to make the Buffalo sports community proud and they've really done that with what they've achieved and we're trying to continue to do that."
Krueger said he loved seeing the Bills used the word "connected" in some of their postgame interviews Sunday in Pittsburgh. It's a buzzword he's used with the Sabres and the phrase "Play Connected" has been on the dressing room wall since training camp.
"There's a lot of parallels right now between the Bills and Sabres," Krueger said. "Sean and I are passionate here to get the sports community back on the track it deserves to be on for the passion that's in the area. It's a lot of fun. Both of us are having a lot of fun in our work. ... I watched every second, every minute, every snap yesterday."
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Ralph Krueger Interview – Howard & Jeremy (12/18/19)
Posted on December 18, 2019 by Ian Ott | Leave a comment
December 18, 2019
Ralph Krueger
Howard and Jeremy (9:30 a.m.)
12-18 Sabres head coach Ralph Krueger with Howard and Jeremy (13:18)
Howard Simon: Ralph, it’s Howard and Jeremy. Good morning, welcome to the show, sir.
Ralph Krueger: Good morning from our hotel here in Philadelphia.
HS: Oh, that’s right, yeah, I’m thinking you’re not busing back last night, you’re going to Philadelphia. Well thanks for joining us from the city of brotherly love.
HS: So last night, Ralph, you look at the game and dug yourselves kind of a hole last night and couldn’t dig out of it. Is that one of the stories that you thought developed last night in Toronto?
RK: Well we dug ourselves a hole, for sure, and it was disappointing because we were off our game last night from the get go and had trouble finding, you know, the principles that make us the best possible team, so we were frustrated with that. What I liked was the reaction within the room after two periods and the conversations we had and the fight in the third where we actually, with the 6-on-4 with two and a half minutes to go had an opportunity to at least get a point out of that game even though we had two off periods. Yeah, now it’s back to the drawing board and getting the group regrouped for a better game tomorrow. We were disappointed with that loss last night, but let that adversity, again, give us some lessons to take with.
Jeremy White: Ralph, games like that will just kind of happen. I mean, it’s a long season, you’re going to have your ups and downs. What are those conversations like when you’re saying, you recognize you’re off your game and in the room, maybe after the first or after the second, who’s talking? What’s being said? How active is your role in that? How much are the players talking?
RK: Well the pattern in the intermissions is usually pretty similar so the players can take care of their bodies and their minds in the right way. I usually come in at about the 10-minute mark of the intermission and speak to them and then give them a few minutes before we come back on the ice. But they’re also having conversations on their own. We have a good leadership group here; they understand pretty clearly what the expectations are. And the guys are honest, they know when we’re off and they work on that. We as coaches will bring in the inputs we feel are right, you know? As a coach sometimes it’s going to be about hockey and sometimes it’s going to be about life or about motivation and effort, you know? That’s always on an intermission-to-intermission basis. I usually follow my gut after speaking with the coaching staff and sometimes you come in right after the period if there’s need, but generally, you know — last night was one where we were definitely all quite grumpy after two and, you know, came out with a fight in the third.
HS: A strategy question: The pulling the goalie with the power play late, you did it last night, you did it against the Islanders and it worked. Now last night you did it, you know, I think with about 45 seconds left or so on the power play. What’s the thought process, how do you figure out am I going to do this, when am I going to do this?
RK: Well it just depends on how much time’s left in the game. I mean, we would be pulling our goalie irrelevant of a power play or not at about the 2:30 mark now. In the old days, you used to wait until a minute to go, but that’s, you know, it’s just not enough time to get organized anymore the way the pace of the game is. You take that risk if you have control. So on that situation last night we felt extremely comfortable. We ended up with an unfortunate turnover after actually getting set up in the zone. You need to take risks down the stretch when you’re down goals in the NHL today and that man advantage usually has been effective for us. We’ve scored a lot of goals with the goalies out and yesterday we took it on the chin. But I would make that same decision again today looking at the circumstances that we had.
HS: Ralph, when you look at some of the things you’re trying to fix with this team, the [Jack] Eichel line has been great and the scoring after that is spotty. As a coaching staff, what can you do? How can you try and address that? How much of an issue has that been?
RK: Well first of all, the positive is you have a line, like the Eichel line, firing on all cylinders as it is and certainly one of, if not the best line in the National Hockey League right now. But you’re right, 100 percent, guys. We need to get secondary scoring going here. It needs to alleviate some of the 5-on-5 pressure. The opposition are throwing their top D and top forward line at Jack and Sam [Reinhart] and [Victor Olofsson] here on every road game and we need to have more pressure there. And what we do is we’re working with different combinations trying to find ones that’ll fire and ones that’ll go for us. We don’t need another line scoring at that pace, but we definitely need to be a threat. We have been in the games that we’re good, we are getting that secondary scoring. How do you work on it? Well, it’s just continue sticking with our principles in general where we need to get traffic to the net, we need guys in the blue paint to create secondary opportunities. I’m sure our secondary scoring will improve. It’s another area of improvement that we have, which is good. As you guys know, we’re in permanent stage of growth here and that’s one area we’re going to work hard at.
HS: How would you categorize Jeff Skinner’s game at this point? He’s — I think he’s gone seven games now without a goal and he doesn’t have a single goal on the power play.
RK: Yeah, he’s been in and out of playing on the first unit so power-play goals aren’t really a good measurement. He’s getting his opportunities; there’s a lot of shots on net. He’s getting three-to-five shots on multiple games here. He is a streaky scorer, let’s hope in Philly it breaks and he runs a streak here again. But offensively there’s a lot of things going right for him, but we have tried different combinations and as you’ve already mentioned in past phone calls, he had a lot of success last year with playing with Jack together, but we’ve got that line firing now so we need to get another line going, and Jeff will be an important part of that. He’s got to stick with what he’s doing and keep working hard to get the opportunities and I’m sure that’s going to come in bunches for him again.
HS: One of the other guys I want to ask you about… [is] Rasmus Dahlin’s play since he’s come back. What have you seen from him since he came back from the concussion?
RK: Well we feel, actually, that the break did him good in so far as watching some games from the outside and being able to see where his positional play without the puck needs to be and we feel he’s come back very strong. He’s adding to our offense. Our power play is definitely stronger now with Rasmus back into the lineup. With Dahlin, it’s an age where the biggest growth with him is going to happen without the puck and defensively. We can see that he’s seeing his position better all the time. He’s reading the game better all the time and we’re really pleased with him since he came back from the injury.
HS: Especially the game against the Islanders, they tried to play physical against him and it seemed like he handled it and actually had a little bit of an edge to his game. Did you see that? Or do you see that in him at all?
RK: Yeah, he ended up with a combination of, I think it was six and four hits and blocked shots, or four and six. When you start getting those gritty statistics as a skilled offensive player, it shows the kind of game that you’re playing. You’re reading it right there, exactly. His physicality in that game was impressive and it’s something that he seems to feed on that when he has some contact and he has some hits and blocks some shots, his offense seems to be more explosive and dynamic. So I think there’s an exciting combination that we’re seeing there.
HS: In our remaining time left, I also want to ask you about Casey Mittelstadt. He went down to Rochester for you guys. I don’t know if you can share anything, any insight; what was your message to Casey when you can Jason [Botterill] met with him before he left for the Amerks?
RK: Well it’s all about him getting reps at a higher level. So his ice time had been reduced here of late and then [his] being a healthy scratch got everybody thinking about the need for Casey at this point in his development to get repetitions and to be able to quarterback a power play the way he can and to play higher minutes 5-on-5, to work on the habits he needs. Casey, we’re excited about his future as always. There’s many different ways the players develop and sometimes a perceived — from the outside — setback like this is an opportunity for him to grow and learn and again get repetitions with a little bit more time and space. Now in the American League there’s a lot of hard work coming at you and there’s more physicality even, at times, so it will be a test for him. But, again, he’ll, with his skill, have more time and space to work on the game that we need him eventually then to play here and he will certainly improve. And faceoffs is another area where he can work on while he’s down there because we do see him as a centerman long term. With Chris Taylor and his staff down there, he’s getting the right messages and will have more practice time in between the games, too, where he can work on all of this.
HS: Is there a time frame with Casey, Ralph? Do you know?
RK: No time frame.
HS: No, you just kind of play it by ear, see how he does?
RK: You know what, we don’t have a time frame on too much here. We wake up in the morning and today we’re in
Philadelphia and we’ve decided not to practice today. We’ll do a pregame skate tomorrow because we felt the group was a little bit flat last night. We’re going to do some meetings and an off-ice workout and then tomorrow we’ll get up and work the game day and so on. It’s really, you know, we need to feel what the group needs on the given day. And it’s the same with the development of a player; we’re going to take Casey day-by-day. There’s no time frame on that at all. It’ll all be, you know, there’s so many factors coming at decisions like that. What’s happening here? How healthy are we here? And so on and so forth. So no time frame; just as we are here, get up, try to get better and take care of the next task as best as we can.
HS: One other thing I wanted to ask you about: I read some comments from the other day about how you text Sean McDermott. And I know you and some of the players were congratulating the Bills the other day on clinching the playoff spot and you had mentioned that — first off, nice job staying up Sunday night for the game, that was good. Good decision on your part. And you had mentioned that you text with Sean McDermott. Is there anything you can learn as a coach from a guy who’s coaching the football team in town?
RK: Oh, we just bounce back and there’s always depth in the messages back and forth with, you know, with a sentence or two. Sean sent some video tips this way of other athletes from other sports, even from basketball, saying something that we both like. But the goal that Sean and I have in common is to make the fans base in Buffalo for sports proud of what we’re doing. We communicated about that in the summer and he’s written me that a few times. All I can share is that it’s a very natural friendship that’s growing and I’m just a really big fan of the Bills and what they’re doing there and how they’re doing it. It feels like vice versa; they like what we’re doing. It’s good to see some Bills players at games and our players love to go there. The relationship beginning with our owners’ passion for sports in Buffalo and getting the sports scene back on track is carried by Sean and myself in the same way. We’re just working hard every day to try to do that and I’m very, very excited for the Bills that they made the playoffs. We’re going to be cheering loud for them.
HS: Well, appreciate you coming on, as always. Thanks very much for getting up with us this morning form Philly. Good luck tomorrow night against the Flyers.
RK: Thank you so much, gentlemen. Thanks for the support, it’s been wonderful and we look forward to a good game tomorrow and then having a wonderful game on Saturday afternoon against L.A. at home in the KeyBank Center.
HS: And you don’t have to stay up late for the Bills game Saturday, it’s a 4:30. So you can get done with your game and then watch the football game.
RK: That’s good, thanks.
HS: Have a nice day, Ralph.
RK: You enjoy your day too. Thank you.
Posted on December 18, 2019 by Ian Ott | Leave a comment
December 18, 2019
Ralph Krueger
Howard and Jeremy (9:30 a.m.)
12-18 Sabres head coach Ralph Krueger with Howard and Jeremy (13:18)
Howard Simon: Ralph, it’s Howard and Jeremy. Good morning, welcome to the show, sir.
Ralph Krueger: Good morning from our hotel here in Philadelphia.
HS: Oh, that’s right, yeah, I’m thinking you’re not busing back last night, you’re going to Philadelphia. Well thanks for joining us from the city of brotherly love.
HS: So last night, Ralph, you look at the game and dug yourselves kind of a hole last night and couldn’t dig out of it. Is that one of the stories that you thought developed last night in Toronto?
RK: Well we dug ourselves a hole, for sure, and it was disappointing because we were off our game last night from the get go and had trouble finding, you know, the principles that make us the best possible team, so we were frustrated with that. What I liked was the reaction within the room after two periods and the conversations we had and the fight in the third where we actually, with the 6-on-4 with two and a half minutes to go had an opportunity to at least get a point out of that game even though we had two off periods. Yeah, now it’s back to the drawing board and getting the group regrouped for a better game tomorrow. We were disappointed with that loss last night, but let that adversity, again, give us some lessons to take with.
Jeremy White: Ralph, games like that will just kind of happen. I mean, it’s a long season, you’re going to have your ups and downs. What are those conversations like when you’re saying, you recognize you’re off your game and in the room, maybe after the first or after the second, who’s talking? What’s being said? How active is your role in that? How much are the players talking?
RK: Well the pattern in the intermissions is usually pretty similar so the players can take care of their bodies and their minds in the right way. I usually come in at about the 10-minute mark of the intermission and speak to them and then give them a few minutes before we come back on the ice. But they’re also having conversations on their own. We have a good leadership group here; they understand pretty clearly what the expectations are. And the guys are honest, they know when we’re off and they work on that. We as coaches will bring in the inputs we feel are right, you know? As a coach sometimes it’s going to be about hockey and sometimes it’s going to be about life or about motivation and effort, you know? That’s always on an intermission-to-intermission basis. I usually follow my gut after speaking with the coaching staff and sometimes you come in right after the period if there’s need, but generally, you know — last night was one where we were definitely all quite grumpy after two and, you know, came out with a fight in the third.
HS: A strategy question: The pulling the goalie with the power play late, you did it last night, you did it against the Islanders and it worked. Now last night you did it, you know, I think with about 45 seconds left or so on the power play. What’s the thought process, how do you figure out am I going to do this, when am I going to do this?
RK: Well it just depends on how much time’s left in the game. I mean, we would be pulling our goalie irrelevant of a power play or not at about the 2:30 mark now. In the old days, you used to wait until a minute to go, but that’s, you know, it’s just not enough time to get organized anymore the way the pace of the game is. You take that risk if you have control. So on that situation last night we felt extremely comfortable. We ended up with an unfortunate turnover after actually getting set up in the zone. You need to take risks down the stretch when you’re down goals in the NHL today and that man advantage usually has been effective for us. We’ve scored a lot of goals with the goalies out and yesterday we took it on the chin. But I would make that same decision again today looking at the circumstances that we had.
HS: Ralph, when you look at some of the things you’re trying to fix with this team, the [Jack] Eichel line has been great and the scoring after that is spotty. As a coaching staff, what can you do? How can you try and address that? How much of an issue has that been?
RK: Well first of all, the positive is you have a line, like the Eichel line, firing on all cylinders as it is and certainly one of, if not the best line in the National Hockey League right now. But you’re right, 100 percent, guys. We need to get secondary scoring going here. It needs to alleviate some of the 5-on-5 pressure. The opposition are throwing their top D and top forward line at Jack and Sam [Reinhart] and [Victor Olofsson] here on every road game and we need to have more pressure there. And what we do is we’re working with different combinations trying to find ones that’ll fire and ones that’ll go for us. We don’t need another line scoring at that pace, but we definitely need to be a threat. We have been in the games that we’re good, we are getting that secondary scoring. How do you work on it? Well, it’s just continue sticking with our principles in general where we need to get traffic to the net, we need guys in the blue paint to create secondary opportunities. I’m sure our secondary scoring will improve. It’s another area of improvement that we have, which is good. As you guys know, we’re in permanent stage of growth here and that’s one area we’re going to work hard at.
HS: How would you categorize Jeff Skinner’s game at this point? He’s — I think he’s gone seven games now without a goal and he doesn’t have a single goal on the power play.
RK: Yeah, he’s been in and out of playing on the first unit so power-play goals aren’t really a good measurement. He’s getting his opportunities; there’s a lot of shots on net. He’s getting three-to-five shots on multiple games here. He is a streaky scorer, let’s hope in Philly it breaks and he runs a streak here again. But offensively there’s a lot of things going right for him, but we have tried different combinations and as you’ve already mentioned in past phone calls, he had a lot of success last year with playing with Jack together, but we’ve got that line firing now so we need to get another line going, and Jeff will be an important part of that. He’s got to stick with what he’s doing and keep working hard to get the opportunities and I’m sure that’s going to come in bunches for him again.
HS: One of the other guys I want to ask you about… [is] Rasmus Dahlin’s play since he’s come back. What have you seen from him since he came back from the concussion?
RK: Well we feel, actually, that the break did him good in so far as watching some games from the outside and being able to see where his positional play without the puck needs to be and we feel he’s come back very strong. He’s adding to our offense. Our power play is definitely stronger now with Rasmus back into the lineup. With Dahlin, it’s an age where the biggest growth with him is going to happen without the puck and defensively. We can see that he’s seeing his position better all the time. He’s reading the game better all the time and we’re really pleased with him since he came back from the injury.
HS: Especially the game against the Islanders, they tried to play physical against him and it seemed like he handled it and actually had a little bit of an edge to his game. Did you see that? Or do you see that in him at all?
RK: Yeah, he ended up with a combination of, I think it was six and four hits and blocked shots, or four and six. When you start getting those gritty statistics as a skilled offensive player, it shows the kind of game that you’re playing. You’re reading it right there, exactly. His physicality in that game was impressive and it’s something that he seems to feed on that when he has some contact and he has some hits and blocks some shots, his offense seems to be more explosive and dynamic. So I think there’s an exciting combination that we’re seeing there.
HS: In our remaining time left, I also want to ask you about Casey Mittelstadt. He went down to Rochester for you guys. I don’t know if you can share anything, any insight; what was your message to Casey when you can Jason [Botterill] met with him before he left for the Amerks?
RK: Well it’s all about him getting reps at a higher level. So his ice time had been reduced here of late and then [his] being a healthy scratch got everybody thinking about the need for Casey at this point in his development to get repetitions and to be able to quarterback a power play the way he can and to play higher minutes 5-on-5, to work on the habits he needs. Casey, we’re excited about his future as always. There’s many different ways the players develop and sometimes a perceived — from the outside — setback like this is an opportunity for him to grow and learn and again get repetitions with a little bit more time and space. Now in the American League there’s a lot of hard work coming at you and there’s more physicality even, at times, so it will be a test for him. But, again, he’ll, with his skill, have more time and space to work on the game that we need him eventually then to play here and he will certainly improve. And faceoffs is another area where he can work on while he’s down there because we do see him as a centerman long term. With Chris Taylor and his staff down there, he’s getting the right messages and will have more practice time in between the games, too, where he can work on all of this.
HS: Is there a time frame with Casey, Ralph? Do you know?
RK: No time frame.
HS: No, you just kind of play it by ear, see how he does?
RK: You know what, we don’t have a time frame on too much here. We wake up in the morning and today we’re in
Philadelphia and we’ve decided not to practice today. We’ll do a pregame skate tomorrow because we felt the group was a little bit flat last night. We’re going to do some meetings and an off-ice workout and then tomorrow we’ll get up and work the game day and so on. It’s really, you know, we need to feel what the group needs on the given day. And it’s the same with the development of a player; we’re going to take Casey day-by-day. There’s no time frame on that at all. It’ll all be, you know, there’s so many factors coming at decisions like that. What’s happening here? How healthy are we here? And so on and so forth. So no time frame; just as we are here, get up, try to get better and take care of the next task as best as we can.
HS: One other thing I wanted to ask you about: I read some comments from the other day about how you text Sean McDermott. And I know you and some of the players were congratulating the Bills the other day on clinching the playoff spot and you had mentioned that — first off, nice job staying up Sunday night for the game, that was good. Good decision on your part. And you had mentioned that you text with Sean McDermott. Is there anything you can learn as a coach from a guy who’s coaching the football team in town?
RK: Oh, we just bounce back and there’s always depth in the messages back and forth with, you know, with a sentence or two. Sean sent some video tips this way of other athletes from other sports, even from basketball, saying something that we both like. But the goal that Sean and I have in common is to make the fans base in Buffalo for sports proud of what we’re doing. We communicated about that in the summer and he’s written me that a few times. All I can share is that it’s a very natural friendship that’s growing and I’m just a really big fan of the Bills and what they’re doing there and how they’re doing it. It feels like vice versa; they like what we’re doing. It’s good to see some Bills players at games and our players love to go there. The relationship beginning with our owners’ passion for sports in Buffalo and getting the sports scene back on track is carried by Sean and myself in the same way. We’re just working hard every day to try to do that and I’m very, very excited for the Bills that they made the playoffs. We’re going to be cheering loud for them.
HS: Well, appreciate you coming on, as always. Thanks very much for getting up with us this morning form Philly. Good luck tomorrow night against the Flyers.
RK: Thank you so much, gentlemen. Thanks for the support, it’s been wonderful and we look forward to a good game tomorrow and then having a wonderful game on Saturday afternoon against L.A. at home in the KeyBank Center.
HS: And you don’t have to stay up late for the Bills game Saturday, it’s a 4:30. So you can get done with your game and then watch the football game.
RK: That’s good, thanks.
HS: Have a nice day, Ralph.
RK: You enjoy your day too. Thank you.
Fjordy
Registered User
- Jun 20, 2018
- 15,322
- 8,245
It seems to me that DeBoer will be a very popular option, given that perhaps 2-3 more teams will want to change their coach in the near future.
He’s been their best coach since Lindy.
He went to the conference finals what 4 times in 17 years? What do you think is a reasonable expectation?
Fans throwing a fit hurt the team.
sabremike
Friend To All Giraffes And Lindy Ruff
I think you misunderstood him: by not a high bar he was referring to all the guys who have held the post since Lindy, not Lindy himself.
Doug Prishpreed
Registered User
There’s only one question I want to ask him: Why tf are you playing Bogosian when every man, woman, and child can see he hurts the team’s chances at winning?
OkimLom
Registered User
- May 3, 2010
- 15,251
- 6,715
I hesitate to agree with this statement by the fact that I'm not 100% positive on what exactly his duties are on this team based on his offseason comments of splitting duties among his assistants. If he's the one responsible for the structure in their game, essentially the X's and O's, then I'd agree he's been the best since Lindy. But if that's Taylor's/Granato's and Smith's doing, then its tough to agree with that.
There are issues on this team, that I have not liked that continue to linger. There are visual signs that Reinhart is not working well with Eichel under this coaching staff, Skinner has regressed and seems to be in a funk (10 game goal less drought 2 points in those 10 games). These are the brightest ones outside of the glaring decisions of playing Bogosian over Miller. I'd like to see them make changes
But it's tough to disagree with the idea that they have improved upon what we saw under Nolan, Rolston, Housley, Bylsma.
It also helps to have a slightly better roster than what some of them had. But this team continues to be carried by Eichel and has a 4th line that is playing at an average NHL 4th line level. The talent on the defense, it's just not having that big of an impact in the transition game as I would hope. The crutch on this team continues to be it's middle 6, and construction of it with the type of players. Even though, these guys are not of the best of quality, there just has to be a combination of players that could squeeze out the potential. I'm just not seeing enough to do that.
jc17
Registered User
- Jun 14, 2013
- 11,031
- 7,760
When does this start to fall on ralph?
Blaming botterill for everything is trendy, and warranted to some extent, but the random scratches, the odd line combos (sobotka line 2, line 1 glued together), and the message of patience while multiple guys want out, I think a lot of what would normally be coaching frustration is being deflected to the gm.
In the article about Ralph's swiss time I remember that he had talented guys that quit or were cut. He was successful there despite that, and maybe that gives him confidence in his method.
But as a coach this has to be a pretty signature turning point where either things will have to come to fruition or he'll continue to lose the room in under a year.
I don't even dislike Ralph but I feel he's really putting himself in a corner here while everyone is preoccupied with botterill
Blaming botterill for everything is trendy, and warranted to some extent, but the random scratches, the odd line combos (sobotka line 2, line 1 glued together), and the message of patience while multiple guys want out, I think a lot of what would normally be coaching frustration is being deflected to the gm.
In the article about Ralph's swiss time I remember that he had talented guys that quit or were cut. He was successful there despite that, and maybe that gives him confidence in his method.
But as a coach this has to be a pretty signature turning point where either things will have to come to fruition or he'll continue to lose the room in under a year.
I don't even dislike Ralph but I feel he's really putting himself in a corner here while everyone is preoccupied with botterill
Aladyyn
they praying for the death of a rockstar
Ok so, my thoughts on Krueger after ~half a season.
Tactically, he seems like a significant upgrade over Housley. Unfortunately this doesn't really show up in the underlying numbers, which are shockingly similar to 18/19 (with the main difference being that we play lower event hockey this season). This team is still hopeless in terms of creating offense and only a probably-unsustainable run by the top line has been saving us somewhat (sound familiar?). In terms of player usage and lineup optimization, Krueger suuuuuuuuuucks big time. Why is Skinner getting defensive deployment? Why is Reinhart on the top line? Why are we STILL trotting out a McCabe-Ristolainen pairing (even though Risto has been playing very well for a number of weeks)? Why is Rodrigues getting scratched after his best run of games since the season started? And the whole Dalton Smith thing??? And that part where he puts wingers at center and centers at wing...
The most infuriating thing about Krueger is that he has these really good ideas quite often and then he either goes away from them for no reason or overwrites them with some hockey man bullshit. He'll make a lineup adjustment that works and then after a couple of games randomly goes back to the old thing we know sucks (Skinner with Larsson, Risto with Montour etc). I like how aggressive Krueger is with things like pulling the goalie and shortening the bench late in games (though that's going to come back and bite us when fatigue kicks in in the 2nd half of the season).)
I like that Krueger is getting great hockey from Scandella and Okposo. I like it less so when it comes at the expense of Reinhart, Skinner, Rodrigues, and Dahlin (seriously, why did so many of our good players seemingly regress?).
And one last big thing, which probably belongs in tactics but I think it's indicative of a bigger issue with the organization. Why aren't our defensemen allowed to skate the puck up the ice? Wasn't that the point of acquiring these mobile defensemen? Krueger is basically ignoring the best attributes of some of his best defensemen, the same way Bylsma did when he forced players like Kulikov and Bogosian to throw hail mary passes instead of skating it up. This to me points to a disconnect between the coach and the GM, something that has consistently been a problem since Murray took over. I was never a part of the "we need a DOHO" but maybe we really do...
Special teams... I won't even talk about special teams. Goaltending got better overall thanks to the new goalie coach so that's nice.
Tactically, he seems like a significant upgrade over Housley. Unfortunately this doesn't really show up in the underlying numbers, which are shockingly similar to 18/19 (with the main difference being that we play lower event hockey this season). This team is still hopeless in terms of creating offense and only a probably-unsustainable run by the top line has been saving us somewhat (sound familiar?). In terms of player usage and lineup optimization, Krueger suuuuuuuuuucks big time. Why is Skinner getting defensive deployment? Why is Reinhart on the top line? Why are we STILL trotting out a McCabe-Ristolainen pairing (even though Risto has been playing very well for a number of weeks)? Why is Rodrigues getting scratched after his best run of games since the season started? And the whole Dalton Smith thing??? And that part where he puts wingers at center and centers at wing...
The most infuriating thing about Krueger is that he has these really good ideas quite often and then he either goes away from them for no reason or overwrites them with some hockey man bullshit. He'll make a lineup adjustment that works and then after a couple of games randomly goes back to the old thing we know sucks (Skinner with Larsson, Risto with Montour etc). I like how aggressive Krueger is with things like pulling the goalie and shortening the bench late in games (though that's going to come back and bite us when fatigue kicks in in the 2nd half of the season).)
I like that Krueger is getting great hockey from Scandella and Okposo. I like it less so when it comes at the expense of Reinhart, Skinner, Rodrigues, and Dahlin (seriously, why did so many of our good players seemingly regress?).
And one last big thing, which probably belongs in tactics but I think it's indicative of a bigger issue with the organization. Why aren't our defensemen allowed to skate the puck up the ice? Wasn't that the point of acquiring these mobile defensemen? Krueger is basically ignoring the best attributes of some of his best defensemen, the same way Bylsma did when he forced players like Kulikov and Bogosian to throw hail mary passes instead of skating it up. This to me points to a disconnect between the coach and the GM, something that has consistently been a problem since Murray took over. I was never a part of the "we need a DOHO" but maybe we really do...
Special teams... I won't even talk about special teams. Goaltending got better overall thanks to the new goalie coach so that's nice.
CrazyPsycho
Elite Drafter
- Sep 25, 2003
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joshjull
Registered User
Its trendy because its warranted.
I don’t agree with everything Krueger does and wish he tried some things he hasn’t. But the big issues that hold this team back are lack of NHL centers (only have 2), not enough forward talent, goaltending struggles and too many NHL dmen which has led to trade requests.
All of those things are on the GM and only he can fix them.
I’ll go back again to the trade for Miller. It made absolutely no sense to target a 3rd paring RHD with the first move out of the box. It wasn’t remotely a need but the other guy Vegas dumped very much was (Haula). So we add the guy we don’t need leading to the log jam on defense thats causing the trade requests.
Yea he isn’t perfect but he is a big upgrade over housley and the team’s forward talent is severely lacking.
