DENVER, CO – FEBRUARY 06: Head coach Bruce Boudreau leads the Anaheim Ducks to a 3-0 victory over the Colorado Avalanche at the Pepsi Center on February 6, 2013 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

After the fourth consecutive Game 7 home loss for the Anaheim Ducks, the latest to the Nashville Predators on Wednesday, someone had to pay the price. Head coach Bruce Boudreau ended up as the one to pay for the playoff failures in Anaheim, as he’s now been fired by the Ducks.

Boudreau took over the Ducks job in the middle of the 2011-12 NHL campaign after he was fired by the Capitals during that same season. In each of his four full seasons behind the bench in Anaheim, he won the Pacific Division. That followed four consecutive division titles in Washington. But Boudreau wasn’t fired by the Ducks for his regular-season performances; he was fired because of the Ducks’ failure to break their own glass ceiling in the postseason.

Boudreau’s struggles in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, particularly Game 7s, have been well noted. But certainly some of the performances can be chalked up to consistent bad luck when it matters most.

In the last four seasons, Boudreau’s teams were up 3-2 in each of those series. But the Ducks lost the final two games in heartbreaking fashion, the first on the road and the second at home. The even-strength save percentage for Boudreau’s goalies in those Game 7s — which include luminaries such as Cristobal Huet, Semyon Varlamov, Jonas Hiller and John Gibson — is .867, which is remarkably bad.

Boudreau was nearly fired during the regular season for a terrible start in which the Ducks were last overall in the NHL in mid-December and also last in the NHL in goals scored.

The veteran coach shouldn’t be out of work long, however, as both the Ottawa Senators and Minnesota Wild have vacancies behind the bench that Boudreau could be well apt to fill. His 208-104-40 record since being hired by the Ducks was the fourth-best record in the NHL over that period. Some rumored names to replace Boudreau in Anaheim include former NHL bench bosses Paul MacLean and Dallas Eakins — currently the coach of the Ducks’ AHL affiliate in San Diego — and Trent Yawney, an assistant on Boudreau’s Anaheim staff.

About Matt Lichtenstadter

Recent Maryland graduate. I've written for many sites including World Soccer Talk, GianlucaDiMarzio.com, Testudo Times, Yahoo's Puck Daddy Blog and more. Houndstooth is still cool, at least to me. Follow me @MattsMusings1 on Twitter, e-mail me about life and potential jobs at matthewaaron9 at Yahoo dot com.