John Muckler
John Muckler ( born April 13, 1934 in Midland, Ontario ) is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey player and was active as a coach with the Edmonton Oilers, Buffalo Sabres and New York Rangers of the National Hockey League. He was also general manager of the Ottawa Senators.
Career
John Muckler began his career as a player in 1949 at the Detroit Hettche from the International Hockey League. He never made the jump to the high-class National Hockey League and played instead in lower leagues, mainly in the Eastern Hockey League. Muckler, who played in defense, took over in addition to his duties as a player in 1959 as coach with the New York Rovers. In 1961 he moved to the Long Iceland Ducks, where he spent two years later his playing career ended in 1964 and was coach.
1967 obliged him to Memphis South Stars of the Central Professional Hockey League, which served as a farm team of the newly formed NHL franchise Minnesota North Stars, as head coach. During the 1968/69 season Muckler joined for the first time in the NHL, as the North Stars made him their interim coach. In 35 games, he was behind the gang, but was able to celebrate only six wins and the team had to leave again.
1970 took over Muckler as coach at the Cleveland Barons of the American Hockey League, he coached three years before the team relocated to Jacksonville and he moved within the league to the Providence Reds. In his first year with the team he reached the finals for the Calder Cup. After another successful year, decreased the performance of the team and the franchise was relocated to Rhode Iceland 1976. But there was weak on the team and Muckler was fired during the season.
In 1978 Muckler back in the CHL, where she won with the Dallas Black Hawks to the playoffs before he was the Wichita Wind, the former farm team of the Edmonton Oilers joined. After a season with the CHL team he took over the post as assistant coach of the Oilers on the side of the head coach and general manager Glen Sather. The team led by Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Grant Fuhr, Paul Coffey and Jari Kurri moved in 1983 for the first time to the Stanley Cup Finals, where they, however, the New York Islanders subject that brought her fourth title in a row. The following year, but succeeded the Oilers first Stanley Cup win in 1985 and they were able to defend the championship.
After the second title to Sather wanted to focus more on its management tasks, which is why Muckler was given more responsibility in the work as a trainer. As equal head coach led her from now on the team, while Sather but still was the official owner of the item. With this lineup, they won the next four years two more Stanley Cups and Muckler 1989 became sole head coach of the Oilers and was able to win the trophy once again.
After the season 1990/91, however, ended without success, Muckler left the Edmonton Oilers and switched to the Buffalo Sabres, where he took up the post of Director of Hockey Operations. When the Sabres were started with only nine wins from 28 matches in the 1991/92 season, coach Rick Dudley was fired Muckler and became his successor and took over in 1993, finally, the position of General Manager. In the 1993/94 season the Sabres for four years reached the first time the mark of 40 wins and Muckler was nominated for his coaching performance for the Jack Adams Award, but a year later he resigned as coach and focused henceforth on his duties as general Manager.
His successor as coach was Ted Nolan, who with the Sabres missed the playoffs in his first season. The second year was much better, but there was a tension between on the one Nolan and star goalkeeper Dominik Hasek and Muckler on the other side. After the rather successful season 1996/ 97, the confrontation between the coach and general manager culminated with the release of Muckler.
But already in the following season 1997/98 was Muckler a new job, as it undertook the New York Rangers as head coach after Colin Campbell was fired for poor performance of the team. But even under Muckler did not change much and he had to leave again in 2000 the Rangers.
In June 2002, Muckler General Manager of the Ottawa Senators was appointed and it was followed by the hitherto most successful season of the franchise with 52 wins in 82 league games, which they won the Presidents' Trophy as the best team in the regular season and went into the playoffs to the finals the Eastern Conference a. The success cast a positive light on the franchise that a few months previously had filed for bankruptcy, but the takeover of the team by Eugene Melnyk could avert the final collapse.
The most important decisions in his time with the Senators precipitated Muckler in due to the lockout -long break between summer 2004 and autumn 2005, when he undertook Bryan Murray as their new coach and striker Dany Heatley from Atlanta took. Both were 2006/ 07 of the main factors for reaching the Stanley Cup final, but they lost to the Anaheim Ducks. Shortly thereafter, however, the Ottawa Senators parted from Muckler.
In the summer of 2007, there were talks between the Toronto Maple Leafs and John Muckler about a possible job in a leading position of the franchise, but the talks remained inconclusive.
John Muckler was next to his trainer activities in the NHL in 1984 and 1987 to the coaching staff of the Canadian National Team at Canada Cup