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Buffalo Sabres Add Ralph Krueger To Head Coaching List

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With several coaching vacancies still out there, the Buffalo Sabres have added a new name to their coaching candidates list as the team has reached out to former Edmonton Oilers head coach Ralph Krueger, according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman late Saturday on Hockey Night in Canada.

Krueger was with the Oilers in 2010 as an associate coach in 2010 and was promoted to head coach for the 2012-13 strike-shortened season, but was let go after one season after leading the team to a 19-22-7 record. He left hockey in 2014 when he turned his attention to association football and became director of Southampton FC, having left in April of this year, although there were rumors earlier that Krueger was interested in a front-office role in the NHL. However, it looks like Buffalo is considering him for the head coaching role instead. Krueger is well known for coaching a surprising Team Europe to a gold medal game at World Cup of Hockey in 2016. He hasn’t coached in the NHL since getting fired in 2013.

While Friedman added that Krueger is just a candidate, and not necessarily a front-runner, he’s in the mix. The 59-year-old is considered to be a defensive-minded coach, he also has been known to have some good offensive teams over the years. After struggling under rookie head coach Phil Housley the past two years, the Sabres are likely looking at a veteran coach that can control the locker room and get the team’s young talents to develop properly. The two other key names that have been associated with Buffalo’s coaching search are also veteran coaches in Dave Tippett and Jacques Martin, although the team is not done in its search. The team was also linked to Swedish coach Rickard Gronberg, but he signed a two-year deal with the ZSC Lions of the Swiss NLA after it was rumored that the Sabres’ were not interested in adding a first-year NHL coach.

Pacific Notes: Edmonton’s Coaching Search, Hitchcock, Stecher

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The Edmonton Oilers and new general manager Ken Holland may have decided that Ken Hitchcock won’t be the team’s head coach going forward, but regardless Hitchcock has been a key figure in helping the Oilers find the next head coach, according to Terry Jones of the Edmonton Sun. Holland spoke about the situation, saying:

I’ve known Hitch a long, long time. Certainly as I’m going through the process of whittling a list of potential coaches down, he’ll be one of the people I’ll lean on. He’s coached against some of these people and if he didn’t coach against them, he knows which coaches he can talk to gather information. He’s from the coaching world. He can gather information up quicker than I can gather it up.”

Holland is expecting Hitchcock to gather information on all the coaching candidates considering the veteran coach’s experience over the years. There isn’t a hurry to hire a coach quickly. It looks like Holland is content to gather that information on all the candidates and make a decision later.

  • Sticking with Hitchcock, the Edmonton Journal’s Jim Matheson writes that there are rumors that the Columbus Blue Jackets might have interest in Hitchcock as a possible team president if John Davidson leaves for New York. However, Hitchcock’s response is that he is not interested in running a team. “I’d like to dig in and help the coaches both NHL and AHL. I think Ken Holland and I would work well together. Just need to find a role for me that would have value,” said Hitchcock.
  • After stepping up in his third season and providing solid defense, the Vancouver Canucks have to decide whether they consider Troy Stecher as a piece of their future, according to the Vancouver Sun’s Patrick Johnston. Not only did he provide solid value as a second-tier defensemen, there are some who wonder whether he could be even better than that. Stecher, who had 11 points last season, finished this season with 23 points. However, if the Canucks don’t see Stecher as part of their future, the team could trade him for more assets for the rebuild. However, Johnston points out that isn’t likely as the team is quite weak on the right-side where Stecher plays.

Atlantic Notes: Toronto’s Penalty Kill, Canadiens, Ristolainen, Acciari

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Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas took the blame for many things that went wrong this year at his season-ending press conference, the most interesting of which is the team’s struggle with the penalty kill, which stopped the Boston Bruins’ power play just nine out of 16 times during the playoffs. Dubas admitted he should have had more depth. While the coaching staff should be blamed as well, Sportsnet’s Luke Fox suggests ways to fix that penalty kill for next season.

The top suggestion is that the team must use real centers to take faceoffs during the penalty kill as winger Zach Hyman took the most faceoffs last season, going 69-72, while star John Tavares took just 29 faceoffs on the penalty kill and was the 12th-most used player on the penalty kill. The team must also add some depth to this team that could lose quite a few key penalty killers whether it’s Connor Brown, who is considered trade bait; Ron Hainsey, who will be an unrestricted free agent; or Travis Dermott, who will miss six months after shoulder surgery, the team must add players who can help their penalty kill.

  • One Atlantic Division challenger to the Maple Leafs could be in the running for one of their unrestricted free agents, as The Athletic’s Olivier Bouchard (subscription required) believes that the Montreal Canadiens should go after unrestricted free agent Jake Gardiner. The scribe points out that when the dust clears, Montreal general manager Marc Bergevin should have close to $11MM at his disposal and with defense being one of the team’s biggest need, Gardiner might be the perfect addition as the blueliner should be able to force defenseman Brett Kulak to a bottom-pairing role.
  • Lance Lysowski of the Buffalo News writes that while the Buffalo Sabres have considered the possibility of trading defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen for a top-six forward, he believes that would be a mistake, claiming that rather than hiding his defensive weaknesses, the team keeps placing him in a role that doesn’t suit him, which is attempting to shutdown the opposing team’s players. Ristolainen, who finished the season with a NHL-worst rating of minus-41, has often been paired with defensive deficient players like Marco Scandella and Jake McCabe, while he also struggled inexplicably when paired with Rasmus Dahlin. Regardless, a new coach that can utilize Ristolainen properly might get the most out of him rather than the Sabres watch him flourish with another team.
  • Joe Haggerty of NBC Sports writes that Boston Bruins forward Noel Acciari has returned to practice and while he’s not expected to play in Game 2 on Sunday against the Carolina Huricanes, he could be ready for Game 3 in Carolina. Acciari, practiced in a non-contact jersey Saturday for the first time after missing the last three playoff games with an upper-body injury. “[Acciari] won’t play tomorrow,” said Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy. “He’s doing well. He should be a full practice [participant] for Monday. We’ll see what we’re doing [as a team] that day, but he’ll be ready whatever the case may be. Hopefully, that allows him to play Tuesday and then we’ll make our decision then.”

Calgary Flames Sign Defenseman Alexander Yelesin

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Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, especially when it comes to the Flames. After weeks of speculation, Calgary has officially announced that they have signed Russian defenseman Alexander Yelesin to an entry-level contract. It is a two-year, maximum ELC for the 23-year-old blue liner, who is expected to compete for a starting job immediately next season in Calgary.

Back in April, following the Flames’ unexpectedly early exit from the postseason, head coach Bill Peters spoke vaguely about several expected import players that he believed could be factors for the team in 2019-20. NHL insiders quickly identified goaltender Artyom Zagidulin and Yelesin as two of those players. While Zagidulin had already signed, Yelesin had yet to put pen to paper on a contract, fueling the anticipation of this pact. The two sides finally got that deal done today, with Yelesin being cut from Team Russia at the IIHF World Championships likely playing a role.

In Yelesin, the Flames are adding a KHL All-Star from this past season, considered one of the most reliable defensemen in the league. Yelesin is not a flashy player by any means – his offense is modest and his size is average – but he is nothing if not consistent. The 5’11”, 195-lb. defenseman was a force on the back end on a regular basis for Lokomotiv Yaroslavl this season, playing strong, safe defense and leading all defensemen in games played, while also contributing ten points. Yelesin, who is also a valued right-shot defender, hopes that he can bring that same reliable defensive game to Calgary. If there’s a knock on Yelesin though, it is that he can get into penalty trouble, which he will have to work on as he transitions to the faster, stronger NHL.

With Yelesin in the fold now, Calgary has incredible depth on the blue line already – and the off-season hasn’t even begun. If anything, expect the Flames to potentially shed a defenseman this summer rather than add. Without any further moves, Yelesin would have to compete for a roster spot with veteran Michael Stone and fellow European youngsters Rasmus Andersson, Oliver Kylington, and Juuso Valimaki just to get play time on the bottom-pair behind a top-four of Mark Giordano, T.J. Brodie, Travis Hamonic, and Noah Hanifin. That’s likely more competition than the Flames would like to enter camp with, although too much depth never hurt anyone.

Armstrong On Blues Coaching Candidates: “A List Of One”

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In the span of just a few months, Craig Berube has completely turned around the St. Louis Blues and has them through to the Western Conference Final. He’s done all of that under the title of interim head coach, without any declaration from the front office that tag would be removed at the end of the year. Today, speaking with reporters including Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic ahead of the third round, GM Doug Armstrong made it clear where the Blues’ coaching search is headed. Sitting next to Berube, Armstrong said the candidate list is now “a list of one” but that they will talk about the future after the season is over.

It comes as very little surprise that Berube will be the man to lead the Blues into the future. When the team decided to move on from Mike Yeo in November, they were 7-9-3 and floundering at both ends of the ice. That didn’t switch immediately when they installed Berube, quite the opposite. The team proceeded to lose ten of their next 18 games and when the calendar turned over to January they were tied with the Ottawa Senators for last place in the entire NHL with just 34 points. Then, the turnaround began.

The Blues would go 30-10-5 in 2019, pulling themselves out of the basement and into a secure playoff position. The recall of Jordan Binnington and his incredible run was a huge part of this, but Berube put the players in the right places and things started to click. In the playoffs, the team walked through a Stanley Cup favorite in Winnipeg, and then needed the hometown hero Pat Maroon to poke home a loose puck in order to dispatch Ben Bishop and the Dallas Stars.

It was always going to be Berube once he got the team to the playoffs, but there is still the question of how long his contract will be and how much it will cost the Blues. Those two things may well be determined by how they do in the next two rounds.

Latest On Buffalo Sabres Coaching Search

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The Buffalo Sabres won’t be hiring a rookie head coach like Rickard Gronborg this year, meaning the list of available names has been dramatically shortened. One name that had still been connected to them was Todd Richards, an assistant under Jon Cooper in Tampa Bay the last three seasons. Richards has experience as a head coach with both the Minnesota Wild and Columbus Blue Jackets, but it now appears as though he won’t be in the running either. John Shannon of Sportsnet tweets that Richards will not interview for the job in Buffalo, and that Jacques Martin and Dave Tippett remain the front runners.

Richards was the first name that John Vogl of The Athletic (subscription required) listed in his recent breakdown of the candidates, but Tippett and Martin followed quickly afterwards. Both coaches have been out of the head coaching role for a few years, with Tippett last leading the Arizona Coyotes in 2016-17 and Martin fired from the Montreal Canadiens in 2011-12. That doesn’t mean they’ve been away from the game though, as Tippett has been working with the Seattle expansion franchise as a senior adviser, while Martin was on the Pittsburgh Penguins bench as an assistant the last several years.

Buffalo GM Jason Botterill tried the rookie route with his first coaching hire, bringing in legendary Sabres defenseman Phil Housley to run the bench. Housley had experienced success as an assistant with the Nashville Predators, but things didn’t go well for him in Buffalo. The team went 58-84-22 during his two seasons, simply not good enough when they have a star forward in Jack Eichel earning $10MM per season. It’s not time for a rebuild for the Sabres, which is likely why an experienced hand is what Botterill is after this time around.

It is important to note that Botterill is currently in Slovakia with Team Canada for the IIHF World Championship, a tournament that will end on May 26th.

Snapshots: Edmonton, Brunette, Draft Rankings

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The Edmonton Oilers have started a new chapter of franchise history with the hiring of GM Ken Holland, and he intends to make it a good one. Holland sat down with Sportsnet’s Mark Spector for an exhaustive interview, in which he discusses everything from his take on Milan Lucic to what his dad did for a living. The piece will give Oilers fans insight into their new executive, and when asked what he wanted to tell those fans he gave a clear answer:

I would say, when you make the playoffs once in 13 years, I understand the frustration. I’m coming here to try to make the playoffs now, but to build over time. I want Edmonton to be an elite team. I’d like to see the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup playoffs next season. I got their frustration.

Getting the Oilers to the playoffs next season will be no easy task, given they finished in 25th this year and had a -42 goal differential, but he does have Connor McDavid to work with. Holland mentions Leon Draisaitl multiple times in the piece as well, and notes that his biggest challenge will be finding a way to support his two superstars.

  • Joel Quenneville will be behind the bench of the Florida Panthers this season, and he may be bringing in an old friend to help out. Andy Strickland of Fox Sports Midwest tweets that Andrew Brunette’s name is coming up in connection with Quenneville, and the two have a “strong relationship that goes back several years.” In fact, Brunette played under Quenneville in Colorado for three years between 2005-08, and actually experienced the best season of his career, 83 points. He finished his career playing for the legendary head coach again in Chicago for a single season. Brunette was with the Minnesota Wild organization for the past several years, but was fired along with several others last month when Paul Fenton made sweeping changes. He had served in several different roles including assistant GM, director of player personnel and assistant coach.
  • Craig Button of TSN has released his latest mock draft, and it has a drastic fall for top Russian prospect Vasili Podkolzin. Podkolzin comes in at 13th in the newest edition, with Button comparing him (in a piece written by Darren Yourk) to Arizona Coyotes Lawson Crouse. One of the biggest risers is USNTDP sniper Cole Caufield, who is all the way up at No. 5 after an incredible showing at the U18 World Championship. Caufield has scored at will everywhere he’s ever played, but measures in at just 5’7″ and 162 lbs.

Rikard Gronborg Hired By ZSC Lions

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The idea of having Swedish coach Rikard Gronborg take over an NHL bench will have to wait, as the ZSC Lions of the Swiss NLA announced his hiring today. Gronborg has signed a two-year contract with the team. With Gronborg rumored to be linked to the Buffalo Sabres vacancy, John Vogl of the Buffalo News reached out today and was told that the team had not actually interviewed him at all. The Sabres prefer a coach with NHL experience, something that Gronborg has apparently heard from more than just Buffalo. He explained in a text to Vogl:

The main reason that I signed with ZSC, besides being the top job in Europe, is that no NHL team wanted a coach with no prior NHL head coaching experience. … My goal is to coach in the NHL sometime in the future. Just need to get a chance.

Gronborg, 50, has been a coach of Sweden internationally at various levels for nearly a decade. He’s totaled seven World Championship medals (three gold), six World Junior medals (one gold) and even an Olympic silver medal in 2014. While there is obviously a difference between coaching the best Swedish players in the world and taking over an NHL franchise, many have believed he would eventually find work somewhere in North America. That will have to wait, but as Gronborg says himself the Zurich job could be considered one of the best in Europe.

For Buffalo now, one has to wonder where they are leaning for their next head coach. Dave Tippett has already interviewed, and the team was linked to Jacques Martin previously. Toronto Marlies head coach Sheldon Keefe, who some have speculated could be of interest to the Sabres, also does not have any NHL experience and thus would seem out of the running.

Snapshots: Draft Rankings, Kovalchuk, NWHL

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The 2019 NHL Entry Draft is just over a month away, but the next few weeks could still determine the top few selections. Kaapo Kakko and Jack Hughes are set to battle head to head at the upcoming IIHF World Championship while playing with other NHL stars and their individual performances could determine the final outcome of June’s draft. It’s unsurprising then that Hughes and Kakko continue to lead Sam Cosentino of Sportsnet’s draft rankings, but it’s not like they’re the only ones still playing important hockey.

Bowen Byram, ranked third on Cosentino’s list, is currently leading the WHL playoffs with 23 points in 18 games and has a chance to even the championship series against Prince Albert tonight. Byram recorded 71 points in 67 games this season, and is the top defenseman available in this year’s draft. His placement at third is an interesting one though, as the Chicago Blackhawks who own the selection have drafted defensemen with their first two picks in each of the past two years—Adam Boqvist and Nicolas Beaudin in 2018, and Henri Jokiharju and Ian Mitchell in 2017. If the Blackhawks decide not to pick another blue liner they’ll have a few names to choose from, as prospects 4-10 on the list all skate up front.

  • Speaking with reporters including Igor Eronko of Sport-Express while working with the Russian national team, Ilya Kovalchuk explained that he is still motivated to play for the Los Angeles Kings and has reached out to some former players who spent time under head coach Todd McLellan. Kovalchuk clearly did not find the good graces of Willie Desjardins last season and ended the year with just 34 points while seeing fewer than 16 minutes of ice time in nearly half of his 64 games. The 36-year old winger has two years remaining on his $18.75MM deal signed last summer.
  • The NWHL is desperately trying to stay afloat after more than 200 of the best women hockey players in the world announced a boycott last week, but they’ll have to do it without the help of Kim Pegula, co-owner of the Buffalo Sabres. The Buffalo Beauts were the only team in the NWHL that shared ownership with an NHL franchise, but will now be operated by the league after Pegula announced that the relationship will be severed. As Hailey Salvian and Katie Strang of The Athletic (subscription required) write, the Beauts were the “gold standard” of the NWHL, mostly because of their relationship with the Sabres and access to resources other teams did not have.

Morning Notes: Flyers, Nutivaara, Duchene

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The Philadelphia Flyers will have an entirely new look behind the bench next season, with head coach Alain Vigneault and assistants Michel Therrien and Mike Yeo. Vigneault explained today to reporters including Sam Carchidi of the Philadelphia Inquirer how the assignments will be divided, indicating that Therrien will handle the powerplay and forwards while Yeo will construct a penalty kill and run the defensemen.

That leaves Ian Laperriere, who was retained from the previous staff, as the “eye-in-the-sky.” Laperriere will no longer coach the Flyers’ penalty killing unit, which has not performed very well under him in the past. The last three seasons the Flyers have ranked 22nd, 29th and 26th in the league a man down, never cracking the 80% mark.

  • Markus Nutivaara is dealing with a torn left oblique, suffered when Nikita Kucherov hit him in the first round. Kucherov received a one-game suspension for hitting Nutivaara from behind into the boards while he was already down, but the defenseman would not return to playoff action. Brian Hedger of the Columbus Dispatch reports that it is normally a four to six week recovery time for this type of injury, which would obviously allow Nutivaara to be ready for training camp later in the summer.
  • Sticking with the Blue Jackets, Matt Duchene was once again asked about his pending free agency today and explained to team reporter Jeff Svoboda that he will explore his options but keep Columbus involved. Duchene experienced more playoff action this season than his entire combined career previously, but it still wasn’t enough to get a real sniff of the Stanley Cup. With 727 regular season games now under his belt, the 28-year old has suited up just 18 times in the playoffs.

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