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Photo by John Lucas / Edmonton Journal

Bruce McCurdy, June 28, 2012, when he was hired here, reports on Krueger in his own words from his first press conference as Oilers coach.

On the Oilers: “We are not going to be focussed on winning, winning, winning to the point that it suffocates us and we squeeze our sticks. We have skill in our room that’s so exciting, and I need to find ways that their instincts can play freely in this organization, that we don’t block them with the coaching processes, and that the natural ability leads us to winning.”

On coaching: “What strong coaching does is allow the instincts of the players to flourish, to flow naturally. That’s going to be one of the biggest challenges, with all the skill we have, bringing them together on one page on the defensive side of the game, but allowing them the freedom to flow and to be dynamic and exciting offensively.”

On his readiness: “It’s been a natural, healthy 23 years of growth as a coach, and I feel like I’m ready for this situation.”

On style of play: I think it’s important as a coach to look at the assets you have. With this group, you don’t have to do the team offence thing as much as if you have no skill. It’s all about groups of five when you have a lack of skill. When you have skill, you need to work together but you can free-flow. The young players that we like to speak about all the time are maturing, day by day, they really have taken to wanting to understand the team defensive side of it. That needs to be a strong foundation of creating a winning culture. The style will be a very disciplined one. We will want to attack on a very aggressive basis and we have the tools to do that, on the same time always building on a strong defensive core.”