Breaking: Jeff Blashill has been fired.

The Red Wings fire their head coach.

Jonathan Larrivee
Jonathan Larrivee
Published 1 year ago
Breaking: Jeff Blashill has been fired.
Keystone

The Detroit Red Wings have finally seen enough of Jeff Blashill.

According to an official announcement from the organization's various social media platforms, general manager Steve Yzerman has made the decision not to renew the contracts of Red Wings head coach Jeff Blashill and several key members of his coaching staff. This means that the contingent of Red Wings fans that has been calling for Blashill to be fired for what feels like years now will finally get their wish with a new head coach behind the bench come next season, one that will be appointed by the aforementioned Steve Yzerman.

The move does not come as a surprise given that there have been questions surrounding Blashill's tenure behind the Red Wings bench since nearly the moment he took over the role from Mike Babcock all the way back in 2015. In spite of a decent start to this regular season the Red Wings collapsed down the stretch going 9-18-4 over the team's last 31 games of the campaign and that included some rather ugly losses for the team as well. Blowout losses to the Pittsburgh Penguins by a score of 11-2 and to the lowly Arizona Coyotes by a score of 9-2 left a bad taste in the mouths of Red Wings' fans and it sounds like management may have felt the same way about the later stages of this season.

It must be said that Blashill did not inherit an easy situation and in reality had very little to work with thanks in large to questionable decisions by general manager Ken Holland prior to his own tenure with the Red Wings coming to an end. Blashill inherited the Red Wings as they were trending downwards and had an uphill battle to fight each and every season he was behind the bench for the Red Wings as head coach.

His tenure as head coach with the Red Wings will come to an end at 537 games, the fifth most in Red Wings history.

As mentioned Blashill was not the only coach given his walking papers on Saturday, with assistant coach Doug Houda and goaltending coach Jeff Salajko also being informed that that their contracts will not be renewed this season.

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