EDMONTON – Was it Skype? Or snipe?
Either way, when Ralph Krueger clicked on the big ‘S’ on his toolbar last Thursday, he had no idea what was waiting for him on his computer screen at his home office in Davos, Switzerland.
“I did not see this coming,” Krueger admitted over the phone Sunday, one day after his firing was announced by Edmonton Oilers new general manager Craig MacTavish. “(The call) turned very quickly into a business call, where he very straightforwardly told me he was hiring a new coach, the conversation was short … It was over in five minutes.”
Anyone who has met this Steinbach, Manitoba-raised, long-time coach of the Swiss national team can empathize. He is the ultimate good guy – who may just be at the heart of why he is no longer the Edmonton Oilers head coach, and Dallas Eakins is expected to be named to the post Monday.
Neither MacTavish nor Krueger would perform a verbal autopsy on the former coach’s work with this roster, so we’re left to draw out own conclusions:
Krueger is a teacher whose general manager is looking for more of a performance-based coach. The time for learning in Edmonton has morphed into expectation of using all these hard-earned lessons over the past three seasons, and winning more games.
Taylor Hall, who is destined to wear the captain’s ‘C’ for this team, has got to stop turning the puck over as regularly as he did last season – with no discernable change in his nightly ice time. Eakins will be charged with turning Hall, Jordan Eberle, Nail Yakupov, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Justin Schultz into the hardened pro he became during his journeyman path through the National Hockey League.
The accountability level has to be higher, and in Eakins, the Oilers have a head coach who wasn’t afraid to call prized Maple Leafs prospect Nazem Kadri out on the first day of training camp last September.
“The one thing Kadri has to improve is his eating habits,” Eakins said after medicals at Toronto Marlies camp last fall. “His body fat today is probably in the bottom three to five guys in our whole camp. That’s unacceptable.”
A comment like that – publicly at least – simply is not in Krueger’s repertoire. Where MacTavish reached his boiling point with Dustin Penner and publicly called him out years ago on just about every wanting element in his game, Krueger always gave the impression that every player is fantastic, and things are great every moment of every day.
When you are habitually near last place, obviously, they can’t be.
“Philosophically, I differ somewhat with Ralph,” MacTavish said. “It doesn’t mean my strategy is right, or Ralph’s strategy is right. But I’m the general manager, and it’s my decision to make.
“Without elaborating on the differences we share, I’m going to allow you (media) guys to draw your own conclusions.”
Having covered MacTavish as a player, the differences we see in these two hockey men are plenty.
MacTavish has been involved in the National Hockey League as a player, coach, scout and manager since joining the Boston Bruins nearly 34 years ago. So it should not surprise that a first-year head coach is, in MacTavish’s eyes, simply not far along down the road for the new GM to stake his job on.
Then why give Eakins his first head coaching job?
Well, Eakins is cut more from MacTavish’s fabric than Krueger.
As a junior, Eakins played for Dick Todd in Peterborough. As a pro he played under such coaches as Terry Murray, Dave Farrish, Ron Wilson, John Paddock, Roger Neilson, Craig Ramsay, Lindy Ruff, Mike Keenan, Randy Carlyle, Paul MacLean and Pat Quinn.
Eakins may only have been a 130-game journeyman in the NHL, but he’s been around the North American pro game since 1988 – the last four of those seasons as an AHL head coach in Toronto.
He is thought by many to be the perfect candidate – a young, up-and-coming coach for a young, up-and-coming roster.
“It certainly hits you hard,” Krueger said Sunday. “You go from 100 per cent in to 100 per cent out. It’s a bit shocking.
“Whether it was fair or not fair, it’s not even worth spending time on.”
It’s Dallas Eakins’ turn to get it right in Edmonton now.
Wonder if he Skypes?