He’s 2-0. He’s back coaching NHL players in an NHL sanctioned event, and as he put it, his squad “Is not done yet”.
Ralph Krueger’s Team Europe has been quite the story, going from a team that a lot of people thought would crash and burn in this tourney to having punched their ticket to the semifinal of the World Cup with a 3-2 OT win over the Czech Republic last night. The other mixed team has been getting production from names such as Leon Draisaitl, Mats Zuccarello and Zdeno Chara, and they’ve been on board with coach Kruger’s plan from the jump.
As we all know, he’s a coach that works to get the most out of a squad. In his one and only year as an NHL head coach, with the Edmonton Oilers in the lockout shortened 2012-13 season, his team had a 45 point year. If pro-rated to an 82 game schedule, that would have given them 77 points, their highest total since the 2008-09 season.
In that shortened season the Oilers scoring leaders were Taylor Hall, Sam Gagner, Jordan Eberle and Nail Yakupov, and the Oilers also briefly sat in the 8th seed in the Western Conference before the season began to slip away.
Of course that off-season he’d be replaced by Dallas Eakins but wouldn’t be out of work in the pro sports world all that long as he’d become an advisor to Canada’s gold medal winning team in Sochi and then would move onto soccer and helping to revive Southampton in the English Premier League.
Less than ten years ago, Southampton was playing in the third tier of English soccer. First as a director and now as Chairman, he’s lead them to three straight finishes inside the top 10 of the EPL since joining the club in 2014.
The last time Southampton managed that before Krueger was from 1979-80 to 1981-82 in the old First Division. Don’t only look at him as a hockey man.
What’s so cool about Ralph’s World Cup run is that he’s taken a team that only existed on paper mere weeks ago and he’s turned them into a unit that wants to call themselves World Cup champions. That said, being a divided group in a way actually helped a little. With 12 players away participating in Olympic qualifying games they’ve gotten a jump on games earlier than players on other teams which has given Europe a little bit of an advantage of already being in a big game mind set.
“We always said that it could be an advantage when it comes down to the tough parts of the tournament like we knew this game (vs Czech Republic) could be and I think that when you’ve been in the trenches like they were in qualification, so many of our players are battle ready in the middle of September because of it.
I’m sure it’s one of the things that has now tipped in our favour, because these players are so professional and were able to regenerate and revitalize their bodies, we were able to find spaces in between and it’s all come together, I think it’s helped us in our first two games”.
As a unit, all of his players staying calm and knowing that there’s still more work to do in this tournament is something that truly has impressed Krueger.
“Just the way that they are interacting with each other and I see the calm in the group, young or old. Everyone is very calm, very relaxed, there’s nobody in the room very giddy after beating the Czechs and being here with four points after two games.
The guys want to march on and I think that’s really something and I have so much respect for everyone in the room. What really surprised me was the group dynamics and not the individuals, we knew we had good characters and when I look at the sacrifice and the role acceptance of players right through our lineup the complement needs to go to the mass and not to any individual right now”.
With this success in multiple sports it makes you wonder, how long will it be before he’s back behind an NHL bench? Does he want to return to the NHL with his obligations at Southampton?
The story of Ralph Krueger is far from over, but how his World Cup ends may be the finest chapter yet.
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