Someone had to take the hit for the poor play of late from the Ottawa Senators. That someone would turn out to be head coach John Paddock.

On Wednesday Sens General Manager Bryan Murray fired Paddock, and gave the head coach job to himself. The season started out innocently enough for Paddock, Ottawa got off to a 15-2 start on the season. However with 4 wins and 8 losses this month, and 7 losses the previous month, GM Murray hit the panic button in an attempt to salvage the season for his Senators, a team still in first place.

“It’s shocking really that it comes to this,” Murray said. “It’s disappointing from everybody’s point of view.”

Shocking as it may be, the move sends a strong message to the players in the Senators organization; particularly players who have been slumping of late (Daniel Alfredsson’s scored just 1 goal in his last 8 games). Center Jason Spezza (Also with only 1 goal in his last 8 games) was stunned as well; and even went so far to say that the firing may not have been called for.

“It’s always a surprise when a coach gets let go, we’ve been struggling, but as a team I don’t think we thought it would come to the coach getting fired. It just shows the high standard we have in our dressing room, the city of Ottawa, and that our owner has. It shows how competitive a team they think we have.”