NHL

BREAKING: St. Louis Blues Fire Head Coach Mike Yeo

Following Monday night’s loss to the last place Los Angeles Kings, the St. Louis Blues announced that Mike Yeo is relieved of his coaching duties. Assistant Coach Craig Berube will take over on an interim basis. According to the Blues’ twitter account, Doug Armstrong and Craig Berube will hold a press conference tomorrow at 10:00am.

Mike Yeo coached a total of 133 games for the St. Louis Blues and had a total record of 73-49-11. His 133 games can be split into three sections: first 44 games, second 44 games and last 45 games.

Blues Under Mike Yeo’s Tenure

Through the first 44 games, Mike Yeo had a solid record of 31-10-3. This includes his end of the season run in 2017 that had the club going 22-8-2 down the stretch to make the playoffs. The Blues had success in one round of the playoffs under Yeo, winning in the Western Conference Quarter Finals series against the Minnesota Wild (Yeo’s former team). After beating the Wild in five games, the Blues would go on to lose to Nashville in six games.

The second 44, show a bit of a slide as Mike Yeo coached the Blues to a 24-18-2 record. This is the point in the 2017-18 season where the Blues began to slide towards the end of December. This is when the comments like, “We just have to be better…” and, “We know what we have and we just have to get back to our game…” and even, “We can’t pin this on one guy, it’s a team effort…” begin to be said over and over.

Finally in the last 45 games, we start to see the direction the Blues were headed under Mike Yeo. The team struggled with 18-21-6 record. The above quotes seemed to be said after every loss. It got annoying after a while and watching the Blues skid out of the playoff picture on the last game of the season was one of the breaking points. Coming into the 2018-19 campaign, Yeo remained in charge. After struggling to begin the year, Yeo ended his tenure with a 7-9-3 record and coached the Blues to a second to last place in the league standings.

Mike Yeo’s Division Struggle

Through Year 1, or the last 32 games of 2016-17, the Blues finished the season at 3rd in the Central. At the end of Year 2, St. Louis sat at 5th place and out of the playoffs and so far in year 3, the Blues sit at last place at the time of the firing.

The struggle continues for the Blues versus divisional opponents and it shows through Mike Yeo’s tenure. Through his first 44 games, the Blues hold a record of 8-3-1 against the Central Division. By the end of the second 44 games, Yeo’s Central Division record was at 5-5-1 and by Yeo’s last 45 the Blues sit at 4-12-4 against divisional opponents.

This is not the only problem. The special teams play was not there either.

Mike Yeo’s Special Teams Trouble

In his coaching career, Mike Yeo has never ran a good power-play. Yeo coached with Minnesota for five seasons and totaled 1,069 power-play opportunities and converted on just 179 of them for a 16.7 percent rating. With just 133 games for the Blues, Yeo ran a power-play that has gotten better this season but was last place in 2017-18. The total attempts through his three years adds up to 391 opportunities with a conversion rate of 17.9 percent (70 power-play goals).

Who’s Up Next?

Assistant Coach Craig Berube will take over as coach, with the interim tag, starting tomorrow. He and Blues GM Doug Armstrong will hold a press conference tomorrow at 10:00am to discuss the forward outlook of the team. Berube will take control of the team until something comes up that involves a new coach.

Speaking of new coaches, some of the possible candidates include: Joel Quenneville, Doug Weight, and Darryl Sutter

Joel Quenneville will be the best case scenario grab for the Blues but he will be asking for nearly seven million a year. Quenneville coached for the Blues from 1997 to 2003. He is the longest tenured coach in Blues history, holds the Franchise’s all-time win record for St. Louis and coached the team to a President’s Trophy in 2001.

Doug Weight is another possibility but may not be the front runner. Weight is a said to be a player’s coach. Meaning that the players love playing for him. Darryl Sutter is a coach I think would be good if he had the right players here. However, with a changing style of play, he may not be the best man for the position.

If you took a look at my last article, Pivotal Week For St. Louis Blues and Head Coach Mike Yeo, you saw that I stated a loss in Monday night’s game to the Kings could result in the loss of his job. It was apparent the way the Blues were playing. The past four games prove that Yeo may have “lost the room”. By the end of this, still pivotal week, the Blues and Interim Head Coach Craig Berube will have a better perspective of the state of the franchise.

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