Hitchcock shown the door
St. Louis Blues make change behind bench with team struggling
HAZELWOOD, Mo. — Doug Armstrong fought back tears on Wednesday morning as he held a news conference to discuss the firing of Ken Hitchcock.
Armstrong, the general manager of the St. Louis Blues, called Hitchcock — until Tuesday night the Blues’ head coach — “probably my best friend.”
“It’s really hard,” Armstrong said to a room full of media at the Blues’ practice facility.
“I just felt that you want to extend every last breath of making it work. We just didn’t play well enough.
“I’m not sure if I’m going to make sense, but we don’t lose with pride. It just felt like we were hit-and-miss night in and night out. We need to demand more of ourselves. “It’s a rebirth. We’re excited.” Mike Yeo, the Blues’ associate head coach, has been promoted to head coach. Yeo had been hired with the idea that he eventually would take over behind the Blues bench; Armstrong had not planned on it happening this way.
Also fired was goalie coach Jim Corsi. Assistant general manager Martin Brodeur and goalie development coach Ty Conklin will work with Blues netminders Jake Allen and Carter Hutton for the remainder of the season.
Hitchcock had a record of 248124-41 in five-plus seasons as Blues coach. St. Louis made the playoffs each year, but did not advance to the Stanley Cup final. The firing came after the visiting Winnipeg Jets beat the Blues 5-3 on Tuesday night.
St. Louis is 24-21-5 with 53 points and, going into games on Wednesday, held the final wild-card playoff spot in the Western Conference.
Armstrong said he had to go home and have “a strong drink” after informing Hitchcock, who was “defiant to the end,” of his decision.
“It’s all-encompassing,” Armstrong said of the Blues’ woes. “It starts with the manager, me. It filters down.
“We have let our group become independent contractors (on the ice). We have a situation now where I trust these guys, I believe in them, but I have a sense of independent contractors. We have to become a team again. We have to take pride in doing things for each other for the betterment of the team.
“It’s a losing brand of hockey and Ken is paying the price for it. He is not here anymore, but there is one guy in that room, or one former guy in that room, that I think is going to the Hall of Fame and that is Ken Hitchcock.”
The Blues play host to the Maple Leafs at the Scottrade Center on Thursday night, and once they were done practising for the first time under Yeo, didn’t mince words about their overall performance in 2016-17. They know they’re responsible.
“It’s going to be a fresh start for us, but as players we have to look at ourselves in the mirror,” defenceman Kevin Shattenkirk said. “This isn’t just a coaching problem. This is something we have to fix in the locker-room and we are all in this together.
“For us to think it was one person’s fault would be a big mistake. We have to realize that when things go south on us, it’s because we all start to get a little too individualistic. We get away from the game plan and coach Yeo has seen that first-hand.”
Yeo’s experience includes five seasons coaching the Minnesota Wild, ending when he was fired after 55 games last season.
“We have one practice (before) we play a game,” Yeo said. “I think it’s important that they play on their instincts (against Toronto), they play with passion and they play together.
“We need to start playing together. Whether it’s when we have the puck, when we don’t have the puck, we have to start playing as a five-man unit on the ice.
“There are some awful big shoes to fill and I look forward to that challenge.”