According to TSN panelist, former NHL goaltender and St. Louis Blues color man Darren Pang, the Nashville Predators have fired Associate Coach Peter Horachek.
Until today, original assistant Paul Gardner held the distinction of being the only NHL coach ever fired by the Predators organization.
Pang breaking the news isn’t as random as it may seem. He and Horachek were Saginaw Generals teammates from 1984-1986 so they have some history together.
Horachek was promoted from Assistant to Associate in June of 2011 when Brent Peterson was forced to step down.
The Stoney Creek, Ontario, native had been a member of the Nashville coaching staff since 2003. He had also interviewed for head coaching jobs in both Florida and Dallas in the past few years.
Nashville Scene columnist JR Lind made Horachek a local celebrity of sorts when he started tweeting fictitious (and often gruesome) “inner thoughts” of the Predators coach during his second period intermission interviews with the broadcast team. Never before had an intermission interview become must-see TV each and every game.
UPDATE (5/21/31, 2:27pm): The Predators have confirmed the firing by way of an un-publicized press release on their official website. As David Boclair of The City Paper points out in his post, there’s no acknowledgement on the front page of the team’s site and you have to click on “Predators News” and then on the entry “Statement from David Poile” to see it.