After a very hard loss to the Los Angeles Kings, the St. Louis Blues have let go head coach, Mike Yeo. Yeo stepped into the head coaching role during the latter half of the 2016-17 season, replacing Ken Hitchcock. Since then, he’s put up a record of 73-48-11 with the Blues. This includes a 7-8-3 record to start the 2018-19 season, through 19 games.

Yeo will be replaced on an interim basis by Craig Berube, who has served as the team’s assistant coach since last year. He was a part of a group of four new members of the Blues coaching staff, joining Steve Ott, Daniel Tkaczuk and David Alexander.

Mike Yeo Fired by the St. Louis Blues

Mike Yeo

Blues fans have been calling for Yeo’s termination for much of the season. They have the fewest points in their division and boast the second worst record in the league. The only team with fewer points than the Blues is the Kings, who shut out the Blues on Tuesday night. This was despite the fact that the Kings started Calvin Petersen in net. Petersen played his first two NHL games ever in the three days before the game against St. Louis but still managed to record 27 saves in the shutout win.

In post-game interviews, Yeo talked about the team’s inability to balance their scoring and their defence. The Blues have the 56 goals through their first 19 games (25th in the NHL). They also have 59 goals-against (6th in the NHL). No questions were asked about Yeo’s job security but the loss was clearly a smoking gun for the 45-year-old coach.

Craig Berube

Berube will take over the bench in St. Louis, his first head coaching job since the 2014-15 season. That year saw Berube behind the Philadelphia Flyers bench, as he posted a record of 33-31-18 and missed the playoffs. Berube was also a former NHL player. He played 1054 NHL games through 17 seasons, starting in the mid-1980’s. In those games, he scored 159 points and tallied 3149 penalty minutes.

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