Another one bites the dust as Anaheim fires Blashill before deadline
February 25th, 2018 -
The Ducks are struggling near the bottom of the West as their five year playoff streak looks to come to an end this year. Amidst swirling rumours that he had lost the room entirely, Jeff Blashill was let go earlier today by Bob Murray. Since taking over the Ducks mid-season in 2014-2015 Blashill has led them to a record of 147-105-17 while making the playoffs every year, but this season was the first with Blashill at the helm that they had a losing record as they were on pace to not only miss the playoffs but finish third last in the conference, sitting with a 27-33-7 record currently.
Who's the new bench boss in Anaheim? Dallas Eakins is the man they bring in - he hasn't had a job since the Oilers fired him in the middle of last season. Eakins is a fairly balanced coach who has spent a lot of his career working with younger players. He will probably give the prospects lots of opportunity to shine. Eakins is not especially bad at anything but neither is he especially good at anything, however he does usually get at least a few years of rope from whichever organization hires him so he may be good at 'managing up' as they say. He should get a couple years to turn this club back around and has a lot of young talent, especially on the blueline and in net, to work with.