A funny thing happened to the Anaheim Ducks en route to trading young star Bobby Ryan. They fired head coach Randy Carlyle.
Just after what seemed like minutes after snapping a seven game losing streak with a 4-1 victory over the Montreal Canadiens, Carlyle was kicked to the curb. The win was only the club’s third victory in 19 games.
The Ducks firing was the third head coaching change this week following the dismissals of Paul Maurice and Bruce Boudreau, who takes over for Carlyle.
Carlyle was behind the bench for Anaheim’s only Stanley Cup title in 2007, but struggled to get his team to play as a cohesive unit this season. Carlyle agreed to a three-year contract extension through the 2013-14 season in August, but Anaheim horrific 7-13-4 start left general manager Bob Murray no other choice.
Carlyle exits as the winningest coach in franchise history. He became the clubs seventh head coach in it’s brief history taking over for former coach Mike Babcock back in 2005 and guided the Ducks to a 273-182-6 record during his tenure.
Carlyle coached the Ducks to the postseason in five of his first six seasons. But since the Stanley Cup victory in 2007 the Ducks have only won a single playoff round.
Carlyle was gruff and could be surly at times. A change was needed and unfortunately for Carlyle his polar opposite Bruce Boudreau was available.
Boudreau gets the gig less than 72 hours after getting fired from a nearly identical situation with the Washington Capitals. His underachieving Capitals had tuned him out as early as last season.
It should be interesting to see if the Ducks indeed benefit from the switch. Boudreau has always reminded me of a guy that is happy-go-lucky and gets through the job by winging it. I guess if your going to wing it than coaching the Ducks seems fitting.
By the way the Bobby Ryan rumors are not going away. In fact expect them to pick up steam over the next 24 hours.
I knew the Ducks had to make a move as evidenced by my tweets yesterday. Trading Ryan wasn’t going to be enough especially in Teemu Selanne’s last season.
November 29, 2011 12:06 pm via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite
November 29, 2011 12:12 pm via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite
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