Blues, Coyotes Fire Their Coaches

St. Louis fired Coach Joel Quenneville on Tuesday and replaced him with assistant Mike Kitchen.

The Blues, who are in jeopardy of not reaching the playoffs for the first time in 25 years, are in ninth place in the Western Conference with a 29-23-7-2 record. Only the top eight teams make the playoffs.

They have won only four of their last 16 games, a skid that helped seal the fate of the winningest coach in franchise history and the NHL’s coach of the year in 2000.

“I think Joel did everything he could,” said Larry Pleau, the Blues’ senior vice president and general manager. “I just felt that the way the team had been playing, that a change was needed -- and a new face.”

Kitchen, 48, was given a multiyear contract, the terms of which Pleau refused to specify. Kitchen has been with the Blues as an assistant since 1998. He was an assistant with the Toronto Maple Leafs for eight seasons before that.

“It’s a hard job to take, when you lose a good friend and coach,” said Kitchen, whose first game will be Thursday at Colorado, the third game of St. Louis’ five-game trip.

Quenneville took over as the Blues’ coach Jan. 6, 1997, and led St. Louis to at least 40 victories in five of his six full seasons with the team.

The Blues won 307 regular-season games during his tenure, but were 34-34 in the postseason, including a trip to the 2001 Western Conference finals -- where they lost to Colorado in five games.

The Blues started this season 20-6-3-1. Quenneville won his 300th game Jan. 1 against the New York Rangers.

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Phoenix fired Bob Francis as coach and replaced him with assistant Rick Bowness -- a former coach with four NHL teams, including the Coyotes when they were the Winnipeg Jets.

The Coyotes are last in the Pacific Division and 13th in the Western Conference with 58 points and a record of 20-24-15-3.

Francis had a record of 165-144-60-21 -- franchise bests in victories and games coached -- in just under five seasons.

Francis was the NHL’s coach of the year in 2002 after leading Phoenix to a 40-27-9-6 record and the playoffs.

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Columbus rookie Nikolai Zherdev will sit out at least three games while an arbitrator decides whether he can stay in the United States.

Zherdev has flown to Zurich, Switzerland, along with officials from the team and the NHL for the arbitration proceedings Thursday and Friday, the team said.

The Russian hockey federation contends the 19-year-old player from Ukraine has yet to meet military obligations in his homeland.

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Chicago acquired forward Jason Morgan and a conditional draft pick from Calgary in exchange for forward Ville Nieminen.