Oilers Add Craig Ramsay to the Coaching Staff, More Changes to Come.

The Edmonton #Oilers have hired Craig Ramsay as an Assistant Coach; Kelly Buchberger transitions into new role in Player Personnel.

— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) June 10, 2014

After six seasons behind the Oilers bench Kelly Buchberger has been given a new job. Buchberger was originally hired as an assistant to Craig MacTavish, and turned out to be the coaching equivalent of Teflon surviving the firings of MacTavish, Pat Quinn, Tom Renney, and Ralph Krueger. After six seasons I guess Oilers' management had finally seen enough.

Filling the spot vacated by Buchberger will be Craig Ramsay. After playing 14 season and 1,070 games with the Buffalo Sabres, Ramsay called it a career after the 1985 season. He returned to the Sabres bench in 1986 as an assistant coach. Since then Ramsay has coached with another six organizations - Florida (where he coached Dallas Eakins), Ottawa, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, Boston, and Atlanta. Most recently Ramsay was an assistant to Kevin Dineen in Florida. Ramsay has a lengthy coaching resume but hasn't spent much time as a head coach, just 156 games in total. His last head coaching gig was with the Thrashers, a job he lost when the team moved to Winnipeg and the new owners decided to hire Claude Noel.

Although announced at the same time, Ramsay will not be handling the same duties as Buchberger. On Oilers Now this afternoon Eakins made it clear that Ramsay will be in charge of the Oilers defence (good luck with that, Craig). That role was of course previously the responsibility of Steve Smith, a man who is now in discussion with the team about a new role with the orgaization.

I have my doubts that the Oilers will be able to make a big splash this summer, but changes within the coaching staff were an absolute must, and on that front at least it appears that the Oilers were thinking the same thing. There is still plenty of work to do, but it's a start.