St. Louis Game Time: Change Was Needed

SB Nation’s Blues blog, St. Louis Game Time, reacts to the firing of Andy Murray and cites the increasingly inconsistent performance of a young team as the main reason for the firing.

Going 6-13-3 at home, having a young roster play listlessly several times and sensing the general gloom and doom around the team, team president John Davidson obviously felt he needed to change the direction of the team. What’s intereisting is that general manager Larry Pleau had come out and said the team wasn’t going to change coaches and that the organization was behind Murray. Apparently they were behind him enough to kick him ou the door.

What a fall this is. Murray was a finalist for the Jack Adams award for coach of the year after the Blues finished the the year in a suprising sixth place. His option year on his contract was picked up right before the season started. That hinted that he had something left to prove with this team when the organization decided to not negotiate an extenstion instead of the option.

At the end of the day, this was a joyless hockey team. Murray may be a great strategist, he might hold the players in check and get them to raise their games on a technical level. But if the players aren’t having fun, if they’re not motivated, it won’t work. And I think it’s very clear this wasn’t working.