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Ralph Krueger is happily ensconced in his role as team president of English soccer’s Little Engine That Could, Southampton, currently third in the Barclays Premier League. But he could have been back in the National Hockey League this season, most likely with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Reportedly, the Penguins talked to him about the head-coaching job in June, after Jim Rutherford took over as their general manager, but Krueger is committed to Southampton until June of 2015. The Penguins offered the job to Willie Desjardins. But he opted for Vancouver instead and Rutherford hired a good man and an excellent coach Mike Johnston from Portland. Krueger worked for Carolina as a scout when Rutherford was GM for the Hurricanes.
Craig MacTavish says Charlie Huddy never got anywhere near the love he deserved as part of the Oilers glory days teams. “(Former Oilers defenceman) Brad Werenka has a company that does analytics work … they grade players based on how tough passes are (not, say D to D passes) and if a player breaks up, say, a 2-on-1, you get extra points for those things. He’s looked at some tape of the old days, of the Oilers when they won, and he says Charlie’s numbers would have been off the charts,” laughed the Oilers GM, who joined the team in 1985 and was part of three Cup wins (1987, ’88 and ’90). “I think Charlie was the most underrated player on that Oilers team.”
Blair MacDonald, the ex-Oilers captain and Wayne Gretzky winger who went to work for Central Scouting, is retiring. He is very interested in next June’s Connor McDavid-Jack Eichel sweepstakes, though. “Eichel (Boston University) might be better than McDavid (Erie Otters). He’s fast and really powerful and he’s a rightie (centre). Everybody is looking for that,” said MacDonald. Carolina and Buffalo absolutely have the best draft lottery odds of getting them. In the West? Heaven help us if the Oilers are so bad, they’re in the running for another first overall.
We know the Dallas Stars tried to acquire Joe Thornton last summer (he wouldn’t waive his no-trade) before going for Jason Spezza, and the Toronto Maple Leafs were sniffing around Jumbo Joe, too, but there is some fire to the smoke of the Leafs getting in on Eric Staal. The Carolina Hurricanes have precious few chips to move to get better and Staal, only 29 and while not the force he was a few years ago, could fetch Toronto a young defenceman (they might rather move Jake Gardiner than Morgan Rielly) and a young centre (Nazem Kadri) and a draft pick or a prospect (winger Connor Brown or a first-rounder).
Calgary Flames coach Bob Hartley wanted his team invested in the ceremonial puck-drop with Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and Lee Fogolin for the ’84 Oilers reunion last week because he feels any banner raising or honouring of great players is beneficial to visiting players, too. It’s a history lesson, and valuable, in Hartleys’ eyes. Good on him.
Many teams thought long and hard about claiming 210-pound winger Richard Panik from the Tampa Bay Lightning off waivers last week (the Oilers quite possibly were semi-interested) before Toronto grabbed him, but the book on Panik, through many NHL scouts, is he only plays when the spirit moves him. “They had a whole line of Panik, (Tyler) Johnson and (Ondrej) Palat played on their farm team, and Panik looked like he might be the best in the NHL, but he wasn’t,” said one pro scout. Johnson and Palat finished in the top 3 in rookie voting last year. “Maybe Tampa thought Panik wasn’t going to be a top six guy and he wasn’t going to play in their bottom six,” said a scout.
Many people feel Brendan Gallagher will be the Canadiens’ captain in a few years even if he didn’t get an ‘A’ on his jersey this season. They had older players (Andrei Markov, Tomas Plekanec) ahead of him today. The little ball of fire (five-footnine, 180 pounds) is hugely motivated, though, and does his summer workouts quietly but furiously. “He was deadlifting 400 pounds,” said a scout.