Oilers fire Todd McLellan and name coach Ken Hitchcock

Todd McLellan, Edmonton Oilers coach, sacked his coach on Tuesday and will replace him instead of Ken Hitchcock.

This is the fourth layoff of the NHL's head coach of the season and the second in the 12 hours following the dismissal of St. Louis Blues coach Mike Yeo on Monday night. Last season, there were no layoffs of regular season head coaches, a first since the Original Six expansion.

During the quarter of the season, the Oilers are 9-10-1 and sixth in the Pacific Division. At 0.475, they have the sixth lowest percentage in the league. McLellan is behind the bench in Edmonton since the 2015-16 season after spending seven seasons as a San Jose Sharks coach. The 2016-17 Oilers campaign was fantastic and expectations were high for the Stanley Cup window. The Connor McDavid Generation Center has not yet reached its peak. But Edmonton missed the playoffs the following season, beating the record of 36-40-6 (78 points), finishing sixth in the Pacific Division – despite McDavid leading the league with 108 points.

Hitchock, 66, is the third-earning coach in NHL history with 823 wins, behind Joel Quenneville's 890 (sacked by the Chicago Blackhawks earlier this season) and 1,244 for Scotty Bowman . Hitchcock spent 22 seasons as a head coach in Philadelphia, Columbus, St. Louis and more recently in Dallas. Hitchock left his position at the Stars at the end of last season, despite signing a multi-year contract a year earlier.

"I had been considering this since our last game and I came to the conclusion that the time was right to retire and let the new generation of coaches take over," Hitchcock said at the conference. time.

During his first stint in Dallas, Hitchock won the Stanley Cup in 1999. He won the Jack Adams Award as best league coach in 2011-12 with the Blues, with whom he led the series five times in a row. six years. Hitchcock, a native of Edmonton, was a consultant for the Stars before hiring the Oilers.

The Oilers had a slight success earlier this month but have recently failed. In their last seven games, the Oilers are 1-6-1. They were beaten 29-17 during this period.