Account
Mike Yeo Fired as Blues Head Coach, Craig Berube Named Interim
November 20, 2018
The St. Louis Blues had apparently seen enough of head coach Mike Yeo after a 2-0 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Monday dropped their record to 7-9-3 for a Central Division-worst 17 points.
St. Louis announced it fired Yeo and gave the interim position to Craig Berube. The team will address the move with a Tuesday morning press conference.
This is another major coaching move in the first half of the season in the Central Division after the rival Chicago Blackhawks fired three-time Stanley Cup winner Joel Quenneville on Nov. 6.
Yeo had been with the Blues since he replaced Ken Hitchcock in February 2017. The team brought him in as a coach in waiting for Hitchcock—who planned on retiring after the 2016-17 campaign—but ultimately elevated Yeo to the primary job during the season.
Yeo tallied a 73-49-11 with St. Louis, although the team missed the playoffs last season after making it the prior six. According to Tom Timmermann of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the coach had just one more season on his contract after the 2018-19 one ended.
He was the head coach of the Minnesota Wild prior to taking the St. Louis job and posted a 173-132-44 record from the 2011-12 season into the 2015-16 campaign before he was fired.
Attention now turns to Berube, who has been with the franchise as an associate head coach since June 2017. He was the head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers from 2013 through 2015 and finished with a 75-58-28 record, and the team's announcement pointed out he led the Chicago Wolves of the American Hockey League to a 44-19-13 record in 2016-17.
He inherits a struggling team that is seven points behind the Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars in the race for the Western Conference's two wild-card positions.