ST. LOUIS (AP) – With the St. Louis Blues scrambling to avoid missing the playoffs for the first time in a quarter century, general manager Larry Pleau decided it was time for a change.

The Blues fired coach Joel Quenneville on Tuesday and replaced him with assistant Mike Kitchen.

The Blues are in ninth place in the Western Conference with a 29-23-7-2 record – only the top eight teams make the playoffs – and are just 9-18-5 since Dec. 20. They have won just four of their past 16 games, a skid that helped seal the fate of the winningest coach in franchise history and the NHL’s coach of the year in 2000.

“I think Joel did everything he could,” said Pleau, the Blues’ senior vice president and GM. “I just felt that the way the team had been playing, that a change was needed – and a new face.

“In these positions, you make decisions, and I felt it was time,” Pleau said. “I didn’t think it was going to get back on track.”

Quenneville was the second NHL coach to be fired Tuesday. The Phoenix Coyotes fired Bob Francis earlier in the day and replaced him with assistant Rick Bowness. Phoenix has won just two of their past 14 games and, at 20-24-15-3, are in last place in the Pacific Division and 13th in the Western Conference.

Kitchen, 48, was given a multiyear contract, the terms of which Pleau refused to specify. He has been with the Blues as an assistant since 1998. He was an assistant with the Toronto Maple Leafs for eight seasons before that.

“It’s a hard job to take, when you lose a good friend and coach,” Kitchen said, whose first game will be Thursday at Colorado, the third game of St. Louis’ five-game trip.

Quenneville took over as Blues coach on Jan. 6, 1997, and has led St. Louis to at least 40 wins in five of his six full seasons with the team. The Blues won 307 regular-season games during his tenure, but went just 34-34 in the postseason, including a trip to the 2001 Western Conference finals – where they lost to Colorado in five games.

The Blues started this season 20-6-3-1 before their recent slide. Quenneville won his 300th game Jan. 1 against the New York Rangers.

“Somebody’s got to take the heat when the team’s not playing very well, and it’s pretty tough to fire a whole team,” said Chris Pronger, the MVP and Norris Trophy winner as the league’s top defenseman in 2000. “Obviously, the coach is the easiest guy to let go, but at the same time we as players haven’t played very well.”

At times this season, Pronger said, “at times we seemed lackadaisical out there and not really put our best foot forward. For Joel to take the heat for that is kind of sad.”

The Blues said goaltending coach Keith Allain will serve as an assistant for the rest of the season.

AP-ES-02-24-04 2114EST