ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Blues fired coach Mike Yeo after a disappointing start to the season and named Craig Berube as his interim replacement.

General manager Doug Armstrong announced the move early Tuesday, hours after the Blues lost to the Los Angeles Kings. St. Louis is 7-9-3 and in last place in the Central Division.

The Blues missed the playoffs by one point last season and lost in the second round in 2017.

Yeo is the third NHL coach to be fired this season after the Kings' John Stevens and Blackhawks' Joel Quenneville. He went 73-49-11 in parts of three seasons with the Blues after replacing Ken Hitchcock midway through the 2016-17 season.

Berube had been an associate coach on Yeo's staff since the summer of 2017. Before that, he was coach of the Blues' AHL affiliate and has NHL head-coaching experience in parts of two seasons with Philadelphia.

Yeo joined the Blues as an assistant in 2016 after five seasons with Minnesota. The Wild made the playoffs in three of Yeo's four seasons, and he was fired 55 games into the 2015-16 season.

The Blues came into the season with Stanley Cup aspirations after acquiring centre Ryan O'Reilly and signing forwards Tyler Bozak, Patrick Maroon and David Perron. Yeo was considered to be on the hot seat and two consecutive losses led to his dismissal.

Following the late-night announcement, the team called a news conference for Tuesday morning with Armstrong and Berube.

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