Ralph Krueger was given the Head Coaching position for the Oilers under grim circumstances. The Team had just come off of yet another brutal losing season, the lockout had just ended after several months of bitter dispute, there was absolutely no training camp, and the schedule was both compacted and featured only Western Conference opponents. The odds were stacked so far against him that it seems now, in retrospect, that there was no way for him to succeed.
And he didn’t.
Expectations, for some reasons that don’t sound as convincing now as they did a year ago, were that the team would compete for a playoff spot. What happened though was that the Oilers were effectively eliminated from the Playoffs with about a quarter of the season remaining. It was a blow felt by the team and ultimately cost Steve Tambellini his job. Once MacTavish had control of the team he went about enhancing the Coaching Staff by finding a quality Associate Coach to work with Krueger. Instead he found Krueger’s replacement.
Now here we are at the Krueger Line (as I will call it), the 48 game mark of the season that marked the end of Ralph’s tenure as a Coach for the Oilers. So how have things shaped up since Dallas Eakins took charge of the team? Not well. Not well at all.
The Oilers are worse in the standings today than they were after Krueger’s 48 games. The 2012-2013 team went 19-22-7 for 45 points. Good for 24th in the standings, their high water mark during the rebuild so far and every single point earned against the West. The current team has gone 15-28-5 for 35 points. They sit 29th in the standings and stand to draft in the Lottery again. Worse yet, if you pro-rate their point percentage against only Western Conference teams then they would have only had 28 points against the same competition Krueger faced.
Against the West they are scarcely better than HALF as effective as they were under Krueger. That is frightening.
Wins aren’t everything though. They are, after all, affected so much by Goaltending and unlike last year the Oilers are getting none of it this year. Under Krueger Dubnyk had a .920sv% and a GAA of 2.57 which are solid numbers and was supposed to be the start of his career as a Number 1 goalie. Under Eakins Dubnyk’s performance has fallen off the face of the Earth with a .894sv% and GAA of 3.36 which is the start of a career as an Analyst for the CBC. Is that Eakins’ fault? I don’t think so. To most coaches Goaltending is witchcraft not to be messed with. I think it’s implausible that Eakins has done something that soured Dubnyk, but it is his problem and that’s why Bryzgalov is here.
What is under Eakins control are his special teams. Under Krueger the Oilers’ Penalty Kill ran at 83.4%, good for 9th in the NHL. Under Eakins that number is 80.1%, good for 21st in the NHL. But the PK is central to the Goaltender making a stop, so perhaps lets not be too hasty to judge the PK harshly just yet. Consider that Bryzgalov and Dubnyk are 56th and 60th in shorthanded save percentage respectively. This suggests that perhaps the PK, which still sits in the middle of the pack, might be doing something right.
The Power Play however is something different. The PP was Krueger’s baby and he had considerable success with it. Under Krueger the PP rolled at 20.1%, 8th in the NHL. Under Eakins, with largely the same group but a year older, the PP is rolling at 18.1%, 16th in the NHL. Both Rookie Head Coaches did some things that didn’t work, for example Krueger’s 5v3 was infuriatingly static and never got the efficiency it should have. Eakins, meanwhile, has tinkered quite a bit with his Power Play, including using a 5 forward formation that worked wonderfully but gave up a short-handed goal to some fringe NHLer with a funny name.*
So what does all of this mean? Well it doesn’t mean much as far as Dallas Eakins is concerned. He has the full support of the Management team and he isn’t really in a position to be let go unless he completely loses his mind. The Oilers have fired so many coaches that they are all but stuck with this one. What it means regarding Krueger is that when we write the History of the Oilers we shouldn’t label him a failure. The team failed him but not necessarily the other way around. His special teams were in the top of the League, he got the most out of his Star players individually, and he won a non-significant number of games against top-notch opponents.
Krueger got a raw deal, I think we all knew that, but I don’t think we knew how impressive his accomplishments were until they were matched up against his replacement.
*Toews
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