Jim Matheson’s Hockey World
Coach Krueger has big-name support
Scotty Bowman doesn’t know who will be coaching the Oilers next year with Tom Renney gone, but he likes associate coach Ralph Krueger, who looked after the Oilers power play and defence.
“He played a hell of a good system in Switzerland. His teams played defence but that’s what you win with and his teams always gave the big teams trouble,” said Bowman, the winningest coach in NHL history.
Krueger’s name has been all over the Swiss media as a possible replacement for Bob Hartley in Zurich after Hartley left to coach the Calgary Flames but Krueger, the Swiss national team coach for years, has made no move on that job. He would rather coach the Oilers.
Is it mutual? I think it’s between Krueger, Brent Sutter and I’d give interviews to Jon Cooper with the Norfolk Admirals, Dallas Eakins with the Toronto Marlies and Los Angeles Kings assistant coach John Stevens.
Defensive game offensive to Bowman
Bowman isn’t a fan of today’s game, with everybody collapsing to the net to stop shot attempts.
“It’s three against five to score. The two defencemen (on the attacking team) don’t come in because they’re worried about getting caught. You get so many outnumbered situations down low. Look at how close the defending wingers are to their net and how far away they are from the other net. It’s a good ploy defensively, but it’s why there is not as much offence.
“When I was coaching in Montreal, Lafleur and Shutt wouldn’t even know what the ice was like below the top of the circle. Look at Wayne Gretzky; he was always out between the blue-lines. Brett Hull? Maybe it’s wise to put four guys down low and one other guy way high,” said Bowman.
Knights’ Ruperts double trouble
The highly entertaining London Knights’ Rupert twins — Matt and Ryan — are a royal pain in the butt to play against (they remind me of a double-pack of Darcy Tucker), but they get on each other’s nerves too.
“They got into a fist fight at the back of the bus at the Memorial Cup. (Coach) Mark Hunter had to go back there and said, ‘I feel like a damn father. I asked “Who started it?” One said, “He did.” The other said “He did.’ ”
“Finally, Mark took one of them up to the front and left the other one at the back. He said it was like babysitting schoolchildren,” said Kevin Prendergast, laughing. “They fight with each other all the time, but when they drop the puck, they come to play. They get under your skin.”
Bruins doubting Thomas
In 1973, Ken Dryden stepped away from the Montreal Canadiens for a year to article at a law firm because he couldn’t agree on a contract with the tight-fisted Habs, but he was only 26 and in his prime.
Tim Thomas, who has told the Boston Bruins he wants to stop playing for a year because he’s tired, is 38. He’s already in the backstretch of his NHL career. Can he get it back, sitting out for a whole season? Unlikely.
OK, Dominik Hasek did it in 2002 at 37 after winning a Cup in Detroit to spend more time with his family and do other things. He came back in 2003, which created a major problem because they’d signed Curtis Joseph. Hasek’s play was still good after that in Detroit and Ottawa in more limited work with the Senators, but he’s a freak of nature. He’s a Hall of Famer.
The Bruins fortunately have Tuukka Rask, who’s ready for more work although the jury’s still out on whether he can be a 60-game guy, and they can easily sign a backup for a year (Chris Mason, Scott Clemmensen, Josh Harding, Tomas Vokoun, Martin Biron), but Thomas is still their guy.
“Goalies are different cats,” said Mike Sillinger, the Oilers head of player development who played 18 years and 1,049 games. “All I know is that lockout (2004-05) was the most difficult year off I’ve ever had.”
Thomas had a difficult last season, snubbing President Obama by not accompanying his teammates to the White House to celebrate their 2011 Stanley Cup win because he didn’t like Obama’s politics. He moved his family across the country to Colorado halfway through the season. He would still owe the
“What was I thinking? Maybe the video replay wasn’t working.” Devils’ Zac h Parise, on shoveling the puck into the net with his glo ve during Game 1 of the stanle y cup f inal
Bruins a year if he returns. He would count against their cap this upcoming season, but they can use Marc Savard’s long-term injury status to offset most of his $5-million cap hit.
This ’n’ that
❚ OK, I know the Vancouver Canucks haven’t formally said what they’re doing with the goaltending next year, but why would anybody not think Brian Burke will get Roberto Luongo to play goal for his Toronto Maple Leafs? Burke is all about the big trade, the big splash (trading up to get Chris Pronger at the draft when he was the Hartford Whalers general manager, wheeling and dealing to draft both Daniel and Henrik Sedin when he was Canucks GM) and Luongo would get his team into the playoffs and help his job security. The last time the Leafs were in the post-season was 2004, before the lockout. Forget how long Luongo’s contract is, as long as the Leafs can get the Canucks to take one of their high-end contracts off their hands, they’ll gladly take Luongo. Hey, Martin Brodeur is 40 and in the Stanley Cup final. Luongo could have six or seven strong years left in him. I don’t buy for a second the end-around story that Tomas Vokoun might go to the Leafs as a veteran sidekick for James Reimer.
Former Oilers first-round draft pick Rob Schremp, who played last year for Markus Naslund and Peter Forsberg in MoDo (41 points in 55 games), will be hiking over to Dynamo Riga next season, playing in Latvia of the Kontinental Hockey League.
Sean McMorrow, a slugger who was at Oilers camp on a tryout a few years back, just got sentenced to two years in a federal prison in the U.S. for smuggling marijuana from Canada into the United States.
The Oilers are looking seriously at Edmonton Oil Kings winger Henrik Samuelsson with the 32nd overall pick, but they might go for teammate Mitch Moroz instead, even if he didn’t get a lot of work in the Memorial Cup. They badly need some nastiness on the wing. ❚ Tyler Wright, the Oilers’ first pick (12th overall) in the 1991 draft is the Columbus Blue Jackets’ head amateur scout now. This will be his first time running their draft table. ❚ The Oilers could use Brandon Prust, a very good penalty-killer, if he hits the open market on July 1, but New York Rangers coach John Tortorella knows how valuable Prust is. You’re paying for character more than stats with Prust. ❚ One of the more interesting UFAs: Boston Bruins centre Chris Kelly, the ideal thirdliner (20 goals, 39 points, plus 33). He is probably looking for something in the range of $3.6 million — Jarret Stoll territory — but I don’t think the Bruins will go that high. The Oilers would have to move Eric Belanger to consider Kelly, though. ❚ The Philadelphia Flyers will be throwing goalie Sergei Bobrovsky’s name into the trade hat this summer, figuring they might need an older, more established backup for Ilya Bryzgalov. ❚ St. Louis Blues coach Ken Hitchcock is close to Renney and has a vacancy for an assistant coach, but he might go with Gary Agnew, his former assistant in Columbus. Agnew lost his job in Oshawa this winter. That team is owned by Adam Graves and New Jersey Devils coach Peter DeBoer. ❚ Now that Jacques Cloutier, who has been with Bob Hartley for years (in Colorado and Switzerland) is joining him with the Calgary Flames, will Shawinigan’s Eric Leveille, who played for Hartley in junior and the AHL, be far behind?
Short Shifts
❚ OK, four out of every five Oilers fans say trading for Blackhawks’ Dave Bolland as a No. 3 centre would be a swell idea, but Chicago needs a No. 2 centre in any Bolland package and that centre has to be big. Sam Gagner has talent and is a 45-50 point man, but he’s probably finished growing, at least vertically. ❚ I don’t know what’s happening with Tom Renney’s excellent staff, but I can’t imagine the new guy would tinker with his goalie coach. Devan Dubnyk and Fred Chabot have a nice rapport and Chabot has done a nice job bringing Dubnyk along. ❚ Kevin Prendergast is staying on with Hockey Canada. He’ll be signing a new deal as chief scout after his first two-year gig. He had some scouting feelers from other NHL clubs, but loves what he’s doing. Al Murray, now the Tampa Bay Lightning’s head scout, had the Hockey Canada job before Prendergast. ❚ The St. Louis Blues have a dandy on the way in Russian winger Vladimir Tarasenko, the captain of the gold-medal winning Russian team at the 2011 world junior championship. Tarasenko, the 16th player taken in the 2010 draft, had 10 goals in 15 games for SKA St. Petersburg in the KHL playoffs. ❚ Shawinigan Cataractes forward Michael Chaput, who now belongs to Columbus after they stole him from the Philadelphia Flyers for tough guy Tom Sestito, was the scoring star at the Memorial Cup, but the best player by far was teammate Brandon Gormley. “He was playing 34-35 minutes a game, four games in five nights and it was 34 C outside. He knows how to pace himself. He’s got a lot of (Chris) Pronger in him. He’ll make a five or six-foot pass, save himself 40 seconds of work, moseys up the ice, preserves his energy and when he has to he digs deep,” said Prendergast.