The New York Islanders dropped a Tuesday-afternoon bomb: 24 hours after they shut out the Bruins in Boston, Jack Capuano has been fired. The Big Club is 17-17-8 just past the midpoint of its season.
Doug Weight takes over as interim coach.
Edit, 6 p.m.: Here’s our story, updated with quotes from Garth Snow’s conference call.
Tough to think that a guy who’s been in the organization this long, that we’ve known here in Bridgeport for almost 11 years, is gone. Pick your “coaches are hired to be fired” cliche, and even six years in the NHL is quite a run, but still.
It didn’t feel right to mention in context in the story because it sounded contradictory to what Snow was saying over the long haul, but found it interesting: Travis Hamonic is the last guy left with the Islanders who played for Capuano in Bridgeport. (Josh Bailey was sent down a couple of weeks after Capuano went up.)
As noted in the story, Capuano’s the only Islanders or Sound Tigers coach to win a playoff game since 2008. Even since the Sound Tigers arrived in 2001-02, the only coach with more AHL/NHL playoff wins is Steve Stirling, who won 17 with Bridgeport and one more with the Islanders. There are only four other guys with any, led by Peter Laviolette’s four.