Bruins Ax Burns, Hire Keenan

The Boston Bruins will rue the day they failed to win for Pat Burns.

Mired in a four-game losing streak after last season's collapse, the Bruins fired their fiery head coach on Wednesday and replaced him with the even more volcanic Mike Keenan.

"I don't have a whole lot of patience for average performances," Keenan said when asked about the reputation he developed as the coach with five previous NHL teams. "I think that there (has to be) an expectation for players to challenge themselves. If you don't ask for it, you don't get it."

Keenan, 51, was considered for the job when the Bruins fired Steve Kasper in 1997. But Boston hired Burns and Keenan went to Vancouver, lasting less than two seasons before he was fired.

While working the last 1 1/2 seasons as a radio broadcaster in Toronto, Keenan worried whether he'd ever get another chance to coach. What's worse: He had no players around to take out his frustrations on.

"I've had to deal with myself every single day," he joked, "and that's a difficult task."

Bruins players, who supported Burns when rumors of his firing circulated last season, said Wednesday they were shocked that the change was being made so early in the season.

As for Keenan, they said they would be ready.

"I think there's a little bit of a shock factor with some of his tactics," goaltender Byron Dafoe said. "As a group, I don't know. Maybe he gives us a kick in the butt or something."

Keenan becomes only the third coach in NHL history to have coached half of the "Original Six" teams; Dick Irvin was the first, and Burns was the second.

Like Burns, a former Quebec cop who was supposed to whip the Bruins into line when he replaced the likable but ineffective Steve Kasper, Keenan has a history of quick turnarounds.

In Philadelphia, the Flyers finished with the best regular-season record and made the Stanley Cup Finals in 1984-85, Keenan's first year; he was selected coach of the year. They made the Finals again two years later.

In Chicago, he made the Finals in his third year. In New York, he won the Stanley Cup in his only season with the Rangers. In St. Louis, he led the Blues to a .635 winning percentage in the lockout-shortened 1995 season.

But, also like Burns, Keenan has a history of wearing thin on his players after the initial jolt. In three of his four multiyear stints, his team won fewer games in each of the seasons he stayed.

"I think if you asked most of the players who played for me ... 'Would you play for Mike Keenan again,' most of them would say, 'Yes,'" Keenan said. "I think, with athletes in particular, they're here to compete and to succeed. They enjoy that more than anything.">

For the Bruins, who suffered one crisis after another last season, one good year would be plenty. They started this season 3-0-1 before losing four consecutive games on their recent West Coast swing.

After watching the Bruins lost their third straight, 6-1 to Edmonton last Tuesday, general manager Harry Sinden decided he'd seen enough. He called Keenan on Sunday.

"We believe that the players on this team have the talent to be a contending playoff club, but have not played up to that potential," Sinden said. "I felt a coaching change was necessary at this time for us to move forward."

Keenan flew into Boston on Wednesday morning for an 11 a.m. news conference that he left to coach his first practice. He was given a one-year contract with an option for two more.

Although he was also the general manager with the Blackhawks and the Blues, he will just coach in Boston.

"There's one thing I learned a long time ago: Managers manage, coaches coach and players play," Keenan said. "If we can all remember that, we'd all be in great shape."

Burns was not available for comment.

"It sounded somewhat as if he was not totally surprised," said Sinden, who spoke with Burns by phone before making the announcement.

Burns took over the Bruins in 1997 after the franchise finished with the worst record in the NHL and missed the playoffs for the first time in 30 years. The team improved by 30 points in the standings in his first year, earning him a third coach of the year award.

In 1998, the Bruins won a first-round playoff series for the first time since 1994. But last year, they missed the playoffs for just the second time since 1967 and suffered several other indignities along the way.

Despite injuries to starting goalie Dafoe, top scorers Jason Allison and Anson Carter and defenseman Kyle McLaren, owner Jeremy Jacobs blamed Burns for the team's performance. With all else lost, the team traded longtime leader Ray Bourque to Colorado to give him a chance at the Stanley Cup he never won in Boston.

The team also had to contend with the fallout from Marty McSorley's stick attack on Vancouver forward Donald Brashear and McSorley's eventual conviction on a charge of assault with a weapon.

Sinden seemed poised to fire Burns last April, but relented when Burns said he could play the forechecking style Sinden favored. Asked i he regretted his decision not to fire Burns then, Sinden said, "No, I don't."

"I think it was worth the effort. I think Pat was worth the effort," Sinden said. "Perhaps he could be right, that to go his way was the way to go. But we didn't think it was and we didn't have the luxury to go much farther."