Monday, January 9, 2012

Scott Arniel Fired





1) The Columbus Blue Jackets have fired head coach Scott Arniel. The move comes a day after the Blue Jackets were defeated 7-4 by the Anaheim Ducks in a meeting of the NHL's worst teams. (The Ducks fired their coach Randy Carlyle a month ago and thus far have failed to improve). Assistant coach Todd Richards will take over on an interim basis for the remainder of the season. As Fauxrumors stated in October in his annual great post concerning NHL coaches- who-gets-axe-first-2011-edition. In that post concerning Arniel he said:" Scott in a tough situation. The team tried to make a splash with off season moves AND they have a GM(Scottt Howson) who himself is under the gun. Coupled that with not having the horses to win a playoff spot, we wouldn't be shocked to see Scott be on the chopping block before season's end. Nice call FR!

2) We believe that Columbus management would have been better served if they simply "cleaned house" and fired Howson first or along with Arniel. We feel badly for Scott as I believe he never had a chance to succeed here. A bad team with a few injuries simply was NOT going to win. He didn't assemble the team, Howson did! So when the GM says crap like:" I just wanted to move the team in a new direction with a different head coach. Scott tried everything and he was running out of answers. I didn't see much hope in moving forward with him. I just felt this needed to be done." Hey asshole, YOU'RE the problem. If you had any class you'd have resigned today!

3) As for the change we don't think it'll have much long term impact upon the team this season. Much like we didn't have anything against Arniel, we also aren't slighting new coach Richards. He did a decent job with the Wild in his last head coaching gig, but they are 20 points out of the 8th spot, dead last in the West. At best they may avoid being 30th and overtake Anaheim, Edmonton or the NY Islanders but we can't see them going above 26th, so (another) Lottery pick is all but assured. The team needs to trade Nash (which we believe it will be the deadline) and also jetison Howson and start afresh this summer.

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