Bruce Ramsay's Player-Coaching Profile:
http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=6007
This is posted on the Tulsa World website:
Oilers feel pain of another lost season
By JOHN RITTENOURE World Correspondent on Apr 11, 2013
For the second year in a row and the seventh time in eight years, the Tulsa Oilers With a record of 22-39-5, the Oilers finished this year's campaign in last place. And during the final weeks of the season, there was unrest among some of the fans. Oilers owner Jeff Lund would not address the season that just ended, but coach Bruce Ramsay could feel the fans' pain.
"It was a disappointing year, and I know some fans are not very happy and I don't blame them," said Ramsay, who took the Oilers to the playoffs in his second season as coach (2011). "It is a situation I am not used to being in and don't ever want to again. It is tough to be in this situation. It is very disappointing.
"When I look over my career of 23 years as a coach and player, this is by far the worst I have gone through."
Ramsay, who just completed his fourth season as Oilers coach, cited several reasons for the Oilers' dismal season.
"We went through a lot of adversity," Ramsay said. "We started off fine, but with the NHL lockout and the players that were here, the league (CHL) was incredibly stacked and there was not an easy game. The quality of the league was incredible this year and you have to have that depth to sustain a winning season.
"We started out 6-5 then went on a downhill slide."
missed the Central Hockey League playoffs.
After hovering near .500 early in the season, the Oilers went on a nine-game skid and never recovered.
Tulsa ended the season ranked 10th in the CHL in goals scored (177) and 10th in goals against (254).
"I credit that to losing some key players that were hard to replace," said Ramsay of injuries that plagued the team. "Our goaltending was not what it was at the last half of the season with Shane Madolora. Later in the season, over a 12-game stretch, we had the best record in the league, then we had some key injuries come back and haunt us.
"We did not have the depth and played shorthanded the last two-thirds of the season."
The NHL lockout was another factor that several CHL teams, especially league-leading Allen, benefited from by acquiring players from the American Hockey League.
Tulsa does not have an AHL affiliation.
"Several teams got a lot of players available to them that they would not have had if the NHL was not locked out," Ramsay said. "They (Allen) had a lot of players from the AHL going up and down all year that really helped them."
However, affiliations don't always work out.
"Some affiliations don't work out and some do," Ramsay said. "It all depends on what the parent club has available to give. If an AHL team has a lot of extra players and they send them down to you, that is great. But in a lot of cases, you will be dealing with a team that does not have many extra players and then they start taking players from you."
There was light at the end of the tunnel with some late-season roster changes. But the Oilers could not crawl out of the hole they dug for themselves.
"I lost some key defensemen early on in the season," recalled Ramsay. "We improved when we brought in guys like Jeff Buvinow and (Ryan) Blaylock. We just never had the depth we needed to be successful throughout the season."
Ramsay is more determined than ever to rebuild the Oilers and feels, if a few key players return, he can build on that.
"I believe there is a good quality core of players on our team if we can bring them back and build around them," he said. "No matter what our record showed, the guys worked hard to the end."
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