Senators Fire Coach John Paddock, Murray Takes over as Coach
February 27th, 2008 | Posted by Wicked in Ottawa SenatorsThe Ottawa Senators fired their coach John Paddock in a surprising move on Wednesday, and GM Bryan Murray named himself head coach. Paddock has led the Senators in 1st place in the Eastern Conference for most of the year, but the Senators have played horrible as of late and have fallen out of 1st place.
Assistant coach Ron Low was also fired on Wednesday.
“It comes certainly because of performance lately,” Murray said. “The results we’ve been having — or not having — was an indicator that some adjustment, some emotion had to be brought back to the team.”
Murray was the Sens coach last year when they made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals before losing to the Ducks. John Paddock was hired int he off-season to take over coaching duties for the Senators.
The Senators are such a deep team with the strongest line in all of hockey, with Spezza, Heatley and Alfredsson, plus a great defense and 2 good goalies. There was no reason for such a falloff from such a strong team, and now Murray will try and turn things around as head coach for the Ottawa Senators. Although this was Paddock’s first season as head coach of the Senators, he had been with the Senators organization for 6 years. Paddock was offered an undisclosed job with the Ottawa Senators despite being fired as the Ottawa head coach.
