Three Reasons The Washington Capitals Fired Todd Reirden

Three reasons why Todd Reirden was fired by the Washington Capitals.

We are just hours removed from the Washington Capitals making the decision known to the public that they had relieved Todd Reirden from his head coaching duties. If you follow the hockey world then this is the farthest thing from shocking. I would say it’s rare that the writing on the wall was this clear and this bold. Still, stranger things have happened and it wasn’t a sure thing Reirden would be let go.

In my opinion, there were plenty of reasons why Reirden was fired. Some of these reasons were clear to everybody, other reasons I’m sure smarter people than me can point to and give you better explanations. Here are three reasons why the Capitals decided to make a change at the head coaching position.

Bad Results

This is an oversimplified reason perhaps and maybe a bit of a DUH! reason. That doesn’t make it any less true though. As a head coach it’s your job to get the most out of your team and Reirden failed to do that as head coach of the Capitals.

This is a team that was coming off its first Stanley Cup in franchise history. Most of the team was the same for the next season, there was not too many changes. Yet this team got knocked out in the first round.

To be a little fair here, this past season there was more change. Brooks Orpik was gone, Matt Niskanen was traded, Burakovsky is gone, Connolly is no longer here. There was definitely more change for the 2019-20 season than the 2018-19 season. But lets be real. It’s not like this team got that much worse, at least in terms of talent. This is still a very, very good team when looking at the lineup.

This very talented team just got embarrassed in the first round of the playoffs. Again, smarter hockey people than me will be able to break this down way better than me using X’s and O’s and things like that. All I’m here to do is tell you why Reirden has been fired.

It’s a coaches job to get results. This is a very good team, I don’t really care who or how many people would say otherwise. This very good team just severely underachieved for two straight seasons, wasting more years of the Ovechkin, Backstrom, Carlson and Holtby era.

At least until recently, head coaches were judged solely on the results. The results Reirden gave were not even close to acceptable. And here we are.