Anaheim Ducks General Manager Bob Murray on Friday announced the firing of Head Coach Bruce Boudreau, making it clear more changes are ahead in Anaheim.
Bruce Boudreau is out as Head Coach of the Anaheim Ducks after almost five seasons and a total record of 232-123-40 including playoffs.
With Boudreau gone who will take the reins? To this Murray said “There’s a bunch of guys out there. This is a huge choice for us. We’re going to take our time; do all our homework.”
That is a change from the last time Murray fired a coach. It was early in the 2011 season, Randy Carlyle was fired and within hours Bruce Boudreau was announce as the Ducks new coach, just over a week after he was fired from the job in Washington.
“The core has to be held responsible. They have to be better. Maybe I haven’t been hard enough in the last few years, but they’re going to hear some different words this time.” Bob Murray
With Murray taking his time, some names that seem to be circling the job are Paul MacLean, Trent Yawney (currently the assistant coaches) and Dallas Eakins. Eakins is currently in a Calder Cup playoff run with the San Diego Gulls of the AHL (the AHL affiliate for the Anaheim Ducks). So far those are the easy guesses as to who might take the lead role into next season.
Murray also made it perfectly clear that he has been too soft on his team core players, putting them on notice Friday during the press conference announcing Boudreau’s axing. Murray had this to say “I’d like to know where the heck they were in Games 1 and 2. The players are going to have to answer that in the next four or five days. Where were they? They showed up in Game 7, but where was that passion? That controlled emotion? Where the heck was that? They’re going to have to be held accountable, too.”
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What (if any) kind of personnel changes will Murray make? First he was clear that “To change some things, some people are going to get moved. ” Now that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be a free for all fire sale on the roster, there are a number of players with long term contract and no-move/no-trade clauses within them. Getzlaf, Perry, Kesler, Bieksa and to a point Cogliano are not going anywhere. Congliano had a limited no-trade clause. The Ducks also have a large pool of Restricted Free Agents this off season and Murray was adamant that doing his best to sign all of them is a priority.
With all the talk of player and coach performance, the question I have for Bob Murray is; when does the GM take some of the responsibility for his team’s performance?