St. Louis Blues Might Have Derailed Mike Kitchen’s Career

The St. Louis Blues have always had an odd relationship with their coaches with plenty going on to bigger things elsewhere. However, one particular coach might have had his career derailed here.

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.

Kitchen had started his coaching career as an assistant in the AHL with the Newmarket Saints – now known as the Toronto Marlies, after moving a handful of times. He worked as an assistant with the Toronto Maple Leafs during some of their glory years of the early 1990’s.

Following the time in Toronto, he was brought on as an assistant with the Blues. He seemed to form a tight bond with Quenneville, which probably made it somewhat awkward for Kitchen to be the replacement of the guy who had won 307 games with the Blues and led them to their first conference final in almost 20 years.

Still, it was hard to argue with Kitchen’s success. His teams generally proved to be good defensively and on the penalty kill, which is usually what he was in charge of as an assistant.

Sadly, the circumstances with the Blues may have derailed a potentially promising career.

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Kitchen was dealing with a team in transition because the team was in transition. Ownership was looking to sell, so they traded off Chris Pronger and Pavol Demitra, both of whom were top four in scoring for the Blues when Kitchen took over. Oh, and Al MacInnis was forced to retire.

Coming out of the lockout, the Blues only had Keith Tkachuk and Doug Weight and an aging Scott Young remaining from the team that lost to Colorado a few seasons prior. Making matters worse, in Kitchen’s first full year behind the bench, Tkachuk missed half the year and Mike Sillinger led the team with just 22 goals.

Young was the leading scorer with 49 points. When Kitchen took over, the Blues had four players with more than 50 points. In his first full season as a head coach, nobody got more than 50.

It got worse in his second year as the team was attempting to transition to younger players such as David Backes and Brad Boyes. Another matter Kitchen dealt with was using four goaltenders in 2005-06 and 2006-07.

With all this turmoil going on and the team seeming to go backwards under Kitchen, the team let him go on December 11, 2006. 13 years ago, Kitchen’s head coaching career basically came to an end and the Blues ended it.

That is not to say Kitchen has not gone on to a promising career. He reunited with Quenneville in Chicago and they went on to win two Stanley Cups (Kitchen came to Chicago the season after they won their first in 2010).

The problem for Kitchen now is that he seems attached to Quenneville at the hip. Kitchen was fired from Chicago in a strongarm attempt by Blackhawks’ management to push their authority and then resurfaced in the NHL once Quenneville got hired by the Florida Panthers.

At this point, there seems to be little future for Kitchen other than being Quenneville’s sidekick. That is not a bad place to be since he is the winningest active coach in the NHL, but it isn’t a way to make a name for yourself.

Maybe that’s all Kitchen wants. Just like some coaches are made to be college coaches instead of pro coaches, sometimes certain guys are better as assistants instead of head coaches. Perhaps that fits Kitchen better.

Or perhaps there simply were not any opportunities for advancement after the debacle in St. Louis. Afterall, Kitchen 38-70-4.

The sad thing is a lot of that was out of his control. He was not exactly given the best situation to work with with everything in transition behind the scenes.

On the flip side, maybe the Blues just showed him he was not cut out to be the main man. After all, the team did bounce back with a 27-18-9 record after Kitchen’s dismissal.

Whatever your feeling on the matter, it is hard not to feel bad that the guy had his career thrown off the rails in St. Louis. He had plenty of success as an assistant, but the Blues were the only chance he got to be the boss and it was never a fair chance. That chance ended 13 years ago.