LIVE: Sabres Hire Head Coach Ralph Kreuger

The Buffalo Sabres have hired Ralph Krueger as their next head coach in hopes of ending an eight-year playoff drought, the team announced Wednesday.

LIVE NOW: WATCH LIVE PRESS CONFERENCE WITH GM JASON BOTTERILL

The 59-year-old Krueger coached the Edmonton Oilers during the NHL’s lockout-shortened season in 2012-13. He was fired by the team via Skype after the youth-laden Oilers finished 19-22-7.

Krueger has vast coaching experience, including overseeing Switzerland’s national team to Olympic Winter Games appearances in 2002, 2006 and 2010.

“Throughout his career, Ralph has shown the ability to adapt to a variety of high-pressure environments while leading some of the world’s elite players,” Sabres general manager Jason Botterill said in a statement. “His strong communication skills, leadership and diverse background make him a uniquely qualified candidate to lead our team going forward.”

Krueger returns to the NHL after spending the past five years as chairman of soccer’s Southampton FC of the English Premier League. Krueger was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and played hockey professionally in Germany from 1979 to 1991.

He replaces Phil Housley, who was fired after two seasons. Last season, Buffalo won just 16 of its final 57 games following a 10-game winning streak in November.

In finishing 13th in the Eastern Conference, the Sabres joined the 2016-17 Philadelphia Flyers as the only teams in NHL history to miss the playoffs in a season in which they won at least 10 straight games.

The Sabres’ playoff drought stands as the NHL’s longest active streak.

Krueger said he will “strive to maximize the potential” of the Sabres and is “eager to get behind the bench and represent this passionate hockey city.”

The hiring came as Botterill returned to Buffalo for a number of scouting meetings this week. He had been in Slovakia working as a management member of Canada’s national team competing at the world championships.

Krueger’s experience includes coaching Team Europe to second at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. He also served as a special adviser to Canada’s national team when it won gold at the 2014 Sochi Games.

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After years of advocating "America First," President Donald Trump's administration, the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced on Friday, "I'm also proud that today we're signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emiri Air Force facility at the Mountain Home Airbase in Idaho."

It led to a swift meltdown from some of the president's top allies.

Constitutionalist and MAGA influencer "The General" was furious, calling it outright "treason."

"We are in the middle of rolling out military across the entire USA and then bringing in a non-NATO country military into the USA is TREASON. U.S. and Qatar sign deal to open a Qatari 'air force facility,' in the U.S., at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho," he wrote on X.

"Is this what 'shared defense goals' means now — or just the latest way our politicians get paid to sell out our country?" asked Amy Mek, the editor-in-chief of RAIR, an organization that advocates for the U.S. to return to a country run by Judeo-Christian values. "Twenty-four years after foreign nationals trained in our flight schools flew planes into our buildings, our leaders are inviting their financiers to train inside our bases. This is what happens when you gut national-security training, scrub every mention of Islam, jihad, and Sharia from the manuals, and let Obama- and Biden-era bureaucrats turn counterterrorism into cultural sensitivity class. We’re being led by officials who no longer recognize or refuse to name the enemy they’re inviting into our own backyard.'

Close ally to President Trump, Laura Loomer, lamented the news after advocating that the administration declare the Muslim Brotherhood an international terrorist organization.

"Well, I guess this isn’t going to happen since we just gave the Muslim Brotherhood an air base in Idaho. So much for my decade worth of hard work trying to protect Americans from the threat of Islamic terror," said Loomer about the new base.

"No foreign country should have a military base on U.S. soil," she also said. "Especially Islamic countries. I have never felt more betrayed by the GOP than I do now watching Islamic jihadists get away with implementing Sharia law in the US and now they are getting their own airbase where they will train to kill Americans."

She went on to warn that it would make America less safe by setting up "for America to be attacked by Islamic savages from Qatar, the biggest funders of Islamic terror in the entire world. So much so, the Saudis and Emiratis find Qatar to be TOXIC. I need to see how much more of my life I am going to dedicate to a party that won’t address the threat of Islam in the West. The betrayal stings. WE ARE LOSING OUR COUNTRY!"

Content creator and influencer Red Eagle Politics denied the reporting.

"We aren’t giving Argentina a free $20 Billion handout, and we aren’t building an Air Force Base for Qatar in Idaho. The amount of dishonest lunacy on this app is reaching new heights," he wrote on X.

Utah state Sen. Nate Blouin, a Democrat, pointed out that Idaho Republicans "have been crowing about" legislation similar to that his state enacted "blocking foreign ownership of land in their state."

Dan Caldwell, former senior advisor to Hegseth, wrote on X that it wasn't that big of a deal.

"The freak out around this is of course totally unwarranted since this is actually a pretty common practice with countries that buy and operate a lot of U.S. military aircraft. Singapore has a similar facility and detachment for its F-15 training unit at this very same airbase," he said.

Caldwell is one of the DOD aides who was forced out amid Hegseth's Signalgate scandal. He has denied any wrongdoing.

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