This is the Jeff Merrick Show on the Sportsnet Radio Network.

Welcome back to the program.

Laura Stacey coming up at the hour.

We'll talk about PWH, Montreal, and Toronto.

Big game on the horizon there, PWH Montreal, the class of the league so far. There's still plenty of runway to go. In the meantime, the headline story around the NHL today, one of the things we'll discuss here with Elliot. Yarmou Keckelanan has been dismissed as general manager of the Columbus Blue Jackets. I hear from 32 thoughts on Hockey Night in Canada. Here he is, Elliot Friedman, fresh from Toronto and Philadelphia skate,

and we'll get your thoughts on those two things in a couple of moments.

But the headline story of the day, kick a lane and out to which Elliot Friedman says what?

Well, unfortunately, I think the writing was on the wall, Jeff.

I think we all thought this was going to happen.

It's just a matter of when it was going to happen.

It's just been too hard a year.

And it's one thing to lose games, but you take a look at the controversy around Mike Babcock,

the unhappiness of some of their young players, you know, Eurasek, Kent Johnson, Varankov,

and the fact that he almost went home at one point in time.

And I think, you know, like, I don't think each individual case on its own was a problem,

but when you look at the overall situation, you just get to a point where it's time.

And, you know, he was the second longest serving general manager in the league.

You know, he had a really good run.

You cannot argue that he wasn't given enough time to do what he needed to do in Columbus.

But I think it just got to a point where it was time,

and everything that went wrong this year was just bad for the blue jackets

and bad for Keck al-Eyton.

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