After starting the offseason with chaotic noise during Edmonton\u2019s head coach hiring period, let\u2019s have a laugh and reminisce about a failed coaching experiment. The Oilers had just capped off year 7 of their 10-year playoff drought in the year 2013. It was shortened to 48 games and started in January due to a league lockout. The team still got a top 10 pick in the draft, but it wasn\u2019t in the top 5 or first overall this time. They were even in a Playoff race for the last 10 or so games. They ultimately didn\u2019t clinch, but they did improve.<\/p>\n
On one end, it was then head coach Ralph Krueger\u2019s first NHL season in such a position, and he was liked by the players. On the other end was Dallas Eakins, who coached the AHL\u2019s Toronto Marlies to a Calder Cup Final appearance the previous year. Oilers alumnus and former Oilers head coach Craig MacTavish had just been hired to be the franchise\u2019s 8th general manager, replacing Steve Tambellini, who\u2019d held the position from July of 2008 until the end of this referenced season. MacTavish admitted as much that the firing of Ralph Krueger looked unfair to him, given that he didn\u2019t even have a full 82-game season to work with, and it was one of the best seasons they had in the standings during the Decade of Darkness. MacT thought the potential in Eakins was too good to pass up on.<\/p>\n
Going slightly off topic for a minute, I have an uncle and a cousin who are Buffalo Sabres fans. You may remember that Krueger\u2019s last NHL gig was with Buffalo in the 2021 Pandemic season that saw 56 games. A few years ago, during a family function, my cousin said to me, \u201cI don\u2019t know how Ralph Krueger was for your team, but\u2026\u201d I told them that Oilers fans liked Krueger, and their team played well under him. He even had former Oiler Taylor Hall on his Sabres, I thought that reunion would be positive. But Ralph was fired halfway through that season, as Buffalo looked like America\u2019s version of the Oilers before 2026. I told my cousin I was honestly surprised Krueger did that badly with them. Clearly, perspective matters.<\/p>\n
Part of the aura in Dallas\u2019s potential is that he was said to be really good at communicating with younger hockey players, which you\u2019d think could\u2019ve boded well with Edmonton\u2019s young core that needed to start winning more games. He even had a decent idea of competition in his hiring press conference when he said \u201cNo matter you\u2019re a first line guy, the 6th defenseman, the 23rd man on the roster, a player playing in the minors, you are going to compete to play for this hockey team.\u201d The problem is, if you remember watching them on the ice, there wasn\u2019t a lot of competing that we can recall seeing.<\/p>\n
Have you ever heard of swarm defense? If not, allow me to explain. It\u2019s a hockey system where, essentially, all five of your skaters move towards whoever is carrying the puck. This is supposed to scare the opposition into giving the puck away by accident. That would sound like a neat idea in theory, if it didn\u2019t leave the other four opposing skaters wide open and hang your goalie completely out to dry. Not that Ben Scrivens and Victor Fasth weren\u2019t objectively bad in 2014\/2015; just look at their stats. But this defensive style also forces anyone in the net to attempt more than what\u2019s necessary as a way of compensating for the awful play in front of them. This is how you play street hockey or pond hockey; it\u2019s not an adequate pro-league system for a roster with their best players being in their early 20s and having no Playoff experience.<\/p>\n
Probably the one interview for me that cements how his coaching was is when a reporter asked him during a post game presser about physicality within a game. He said, \u201cThe perfect game is no hits. Do you know why? Because you have the puck.\u201d It may\u2019ve had something to do with him being very big on Analytics, but he took that too far. He was also against his players standing up for teammates after a hit because he didn\u2019t want to risk them taking penalties. Not that I think every clean hit warrants a fight or a tug, but some that are vicious or close to it absolutely do. Most Western Conference teams, especially in the Pacific Division, were built around size in the 2010s. So encouraging your team to be soft in a contact sport was another internal issue that developed a losing culture.<\/p>\n
How he utilized Nail Yakupov started the ongoing trend of stapling scoring forwards to the 4th line. Remember when I brought up Ralph Krueger? Here\u2019s another fun fact. While he didn\u2019t do that same thing to Yakupov, he did do it to Jeff Skinner in Buffalo. It\u2019s hilarious that when Skinner came to Edmonton, he went through that all again. Former Oilers enforcer Luke Gazdic recently shared a story about Eakins on Dustin Nielson\u2019s podcast. He talked about a day after the Oilers got blown out on another Saturday night of Hockey Night In Canada, they were bag skating hard, and Eakins yelled, \u201cYou think I\u2019m going down without a fight?\u201d before getting fired. His team was 7-19-5 to start that season when he was relieved of his duties. He also had a reputation of being a fitness nut, which he wanted to instill in his Oilers coaching time through changes in media and player snack areas. It turns out that replacing coffee and donuts with fruits and vegetables wouldn\u2019t make any Oilers defenseman a Norris trophy winner, or make any Oilers goalie a Vezina trophy winner. Nor would it improve bottom 6 scoring.<\/p>\n
He eventually found himself another NHL gig, head coaching the Anaheim Ducks from 2019 to 2023, no improvements there. Before that, he\u2019d been hired to coach Anaheim\u2019s AHL affiliate, the San Diego Gulls. He once again had better showings at the AHL level than at the NHL level. It just goes to show that success in a lower league doesn\u2019t always translate to success in a higher league. As of November in 2023, he\u2019s currently the head coach and general manager of Adler Mannheim from Germany\u2019s DEL. His time in Edmonton is remembered as the time that really set a young, desperate team back steps which felt longer than if you were walking up the Spanish Steps. When he gave his firing press conference, he had an ixnay on Kumbaya type of message about the locker room vibes. But while it is normal to have frustration when you keep losing. It shouldn\u2019t escalate to the point where you never improve. The latter is what it felt like under him. Frequent coaching changes in Edmonton have been a tradition since MacT\u2019s last season behind the bench in 2009. I think late 2014 is the only time every Oilers fan was on board with a change. The only positive thing about his tenure is that, were it not for him, we wouldn\u2019t have Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid.<\/p>\n
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