Oilers trending in wrong direction under Krueger
The Edmonton Oilers failed to improve much this past season. It cost general manager Steve Tambellini his job and, now, with veteran coaches such as Lindy Ruff and Alain Vigneault free for hire, many fans and commentators are wondering if the Oilers shouldn’t also bring in a new coach to replace Ralph Krueger.
At his first press conference, new GM, Craig MacTavish made it clear he doesn’t think coaching is the problem with the Oilers and praised Krueger, saying: “I think he’s done a great job with our young players.”
MacTavish is right that young stars like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle thrived under Krueger. However, if you go by scoring chance analytics, the numbers paint a somewhat negative picture of the team’s direction on Krueger’s watch.
The team’s offence stalled in 2013, while the defence gave up slightly more scoring chances (hard shots on net from the slot) than it had under coach Tom Renney in 2011-12.
The arrows were also pointing down for most individual players. Under Renney, six players — Eberle, Sam Gagner, Ryan Jones, Ladislav Smid, Magnus Paajarvi and Ales Hemsky — improved their scoring chances plus-minus numbers from 2010-11 to 201112. Just four players declined, but most of those were due to advancing age or injury.
Under Krueger, NugentHopkins, Eberle and Hall all took major big steps forward in terms of their two-way play, while Teemu Hartikainen took a smaller step up in limited playing time.
But Ben Eager, Paajarvi, Gagner, Shawn Horcoff, Lennart Petrell, Hemsky and Ryan Whitney each took a step back, while Jeff Petry, Ladi Smid, Ryan Smyth, Jones and Eric Belanger all took giant steps back. A few of these players (Horcoff, Whitney, Smyth, Belanger and maybe Eager and Hemsky) declined due to age and injury, but others simply saw their games stall or go into reverse.
That’s not good, not promising, and not what you need to see on a young team that should be trending up.
One other way to gauge Krueger’s work is to look at whether or not he had the right players on the ice at the right time. This is, after all, what Scotty Bowman calls the most crucial job of an NHL coach. Only if players are handled correctly — facing opposition and situations where they are most likely to succeed — will the great majority of them have successful seasons.
When it came to his centres, Krueger gave Nugent-Hopkins the most ice time against the toughest competition, but the 20-year-old thrived. Gagner, his second-best performer at centre, got the second-most amount of ice, then Horcoff and Belanger. Belanger struggled all year, but there were few other choices but to play him, given the injuries to other centres, including Nugent- Hopkins, Horcoff and Anton Lander.
As for Gagner, he had a weak first 12 games defensively, with he and linemates Nail Yakupov and Hemsky far too often on the wrong side of the puck in their own zone. But Gagner quickly reversed course, going on a run of 16 strong two-way games before finishing up the year with another stretch of mediocre play.
In the past two seasons, Gagner has played strong hockey with Eberle and Hall, so perhaps that’s one line to return to in 2013-14. Finding a way to get the streaky Gagner to play consistent two-way hockey, perhaps by shifting him to the wing, is a major challenge for Krueger.
On the wing in 2013, Tambellini assembled a large group of “black hole” players, guys who sucked up ice time and gave little in return. Krueger limited their damage by giving these wingers the least amount of ice, while relying heavily on two excellent wingers, Hall and Eberle, and three passable ones, Paajarvi, Hemsky and Yakupov.
On defence, Smid, Justin Schultz and Petry were the Oilers’ best performers and Krueger also gave them the most ice time. The coach would have done well to play the quietly effective Corey Potter more, while giving less ice time to the slowing Whitney.
In the end, Krueger gets major plus marks for his handling of the Oilers’ young star players, but the second, third and fourth units on the team were generally a mess.
No doubt Tambellini retained or brought in many pieces that were either broken or didn’t fit. Nonetheless, Krueger must show he can get this puzzle right in 2013-14, not just with his best players, but with all of them.