Oilers fire Krueger after one season as coach

Ralph Krueger was fired on Saturday as coach of the National Hockey League’s Edmonton Oilers after serving only one season in the position and failing to reach the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Oilers general manager Craig MacTavish announced the move 19 days shy of the one-year anniversary of Krueger being signed to a three-year contract. He had been associate coach of the Oilers for the two years prior to his promotion.

Edmonton went 19-22 with seven regulation draws in the lockout-shortened season that ended in late April, finishing third in the Northwest division but still failing to qualifying for the playoffs.

That prompted MacTavish to begin seeking an assistant coach but the search prompted him to make a greater change.

“I wanted to hire an assistant coach, an associate coach who was a veteran,” MacTavish said. “During the process of me conducting those interviews, I recognized I tried to add a coach that was more closely aligned to how I wanted to run the team than what Ralph was looking for.

“It wasn’t an easy decision. I stand by that decision and I will be judged by that decision.”

Krueger, 53, had coached the Swiss national team from 1997 through the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, a run that included a sixth-place showing at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics.

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