People do not understand how bad Ralph Krueger was, evidenced by a plethora of Buffalo Sabres enjoying a great playoff run.
I hate to remind Buffalo Sabres fans about this, but do you remember Ralph Krueger? The man who was hired by the Sabres back in 2019 to replace Phil Housley. Remember when everyone thought he was a players coach? Yeah, no.
His coaching record with the Sabres was 36-49-12. Not only did he not compose a winning record with Buffalo, but he made some very questionable decisions with the talent he had. Look no further than Jeff Skinner, who was either benched or placed on the fourth line.
Anyways, there are a lot of former Sabres who struggled under Krueger that are absolutely doing amazing with their current teams in the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Let’s start off with Brandon Montour of the Florida Panthers. In his couple of seasons with Buffalo, he scored 13 goals, 29 assists and 42 points.
Plethora of Buffalo Sabres putting up outstanding numbers in playoffs
After getting dealt to Florida, he has 29 goals, 85 assists for 114 points. Oh, in this years playoffs he scored five goals and registered three assists for eight points in seven games played, and was a huge reason why Florida upset the Boston Bruins in the first round.
Let’s stick with the Panthers and talk about Sam Reinhart next. In his seven years with the Sabres, Reinhart would score a maximum of 25 goals twice. With the Panthers, he scored 33 goals in his first season with them and 31 in the 2022-23 regular season. Great coaching and talent can do that and even though Buffalo fans are happy with Devon Levi, it just shows you how bad of a coach Ralph Krueger was.
We all know how good of a player Jack Eichel was, but another great example was Taylor Hall. You can debate about who’s fault is was but in the 37 games played with Buffalo in the 2020-21 season, Hall scored two goals and registered 17 assists for 19 points.
After getting dealt to Boston in the same season, he would score eight goals and register six assists for 14 points in 16 games played. The points may not back up my point but what I’m trying to say is Hall became the scorer we know him to be once Krueger was not his coach.
What I am trying to say his it’s amazing how good players became once they had an actual head coach. Not only former Sabres, but even a few current Sabres. It’s amazing how bad Krueger was and you have to wonder how it could have worked out if Buffalo brought in an actual hockey mind and not some soccer dude.
(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)