When the St. Louis Blues fired Joel Quenneville in February of 2004, it was somewhat of a shock to fans. The team had been slumping and there were the usual rumblings of the message wearing out or losing the locker room and what have you.
However, the Blues were still in ninth place in the Western Conference. Usually only the New Jersey Devils waited that late in the season to fire a coach and still hope to make the playoffs.
Replacing the winningest coach in team history was his assistant, Mike Kitchen. Kitchen was a longtime assistant coach, who was finally being given a crack at holding the reigns of an entire team.