READING, PA – The Reading Royals of the ECHL today announced that the organization has relieved Jason Nobili of his responsibilities as the team’s Head Coach and Director of Hockey Operations. Former Royals player Larry Courville will take over those for Nobili on an interim basis effective immediately.
“This was a very serious and difficult decision for our organization, which was made even more difficult because of the sincere efforts undertaken by Jason this season,” said Royals’ General Manager Gordon Kaye. “However, we believe that our team is in need of a substantial change and have concluded that this is the appropriate time to take this action.” Under Nobili the Royals were having the worst season in the team’s nine year history going 9-23-0-2 in 34 games (20 points) and are in last place in the ECHL’s North Division. The Royals, in a seven team division, are 11 points away from the sixth place team, the Trenton Devils. On Sunday the team lost to the Dayton Bombers 6-2 putting together one of their worst games of the season. It was evident on the face of the GM that something had to be done. Today, that something happened. The Royals are on a four game road trip starting tonight in Utah. No word on if Nobili made the trip or not, but today the hammer fell on the Head Coach. The Royals were improving on the teams overall offense after starting off the season as the leagues worst offense. After 34 games the team has scored 97 goals, only 10 other teams the league have scored less in the 21 team league. But major issues with the team are a lack of discipline, poor defense and goaltending. The Royals are the second most penalized team in the league with 778 penalty minutes, and have allowed the most goals in the league with 138. They also have the league’s worst penalty killing unit allowing 46 goals out of 203 chances, for a league worst .773 percent. Like the team’s offense, the power play has improved to 13th in the league (.148 percent). Still, team originally did not sign quality offensive players in the off-season. Press release after press release revealed that the players the Royals were signing had little to no offensive background. Only until the season started did the Royals begin to sign players that were quality offensive players. The Royals’ problems initially began before the team could sign players with former Head Coach Karl Taylor leaving the Royals for the new position with the Ontario Reign, who are in the leagues Pacific Division. Taylor led the team to the second round of the playoffs last season only to lose to eventual Kelly Cup champions, the Cincinnati Cyclones. Some of the same players Taylor had in Reading also went with him to Ontario. The Los Angeles Kings also assigned more players to Ontario due to the Kings owning 75 percent of Ontario. The Kings ownership group also own the Royals and the Manchester Monarchs. The Royals however joined forced with the Toronto Maple Leafs as the teams primary affiliate. Unfortunately for Reading, the Leafs have not drafted as well as the Kings in recent years. One case in point is in the goaltender department. Leafs’ prospects James Reimer, a former fourth round pick (99th overall) in 2006, has a goals against average of 3.51, a 9.01 save percentage, and has been poor in most of the games this season. On the other hand, the Kings sent Jeff Zatkoff, a third round pick in 2006 (74th overall) to Ontario and has been one of the leagues best goaltenders. Zatkoff has never had a save percentage below 90 percent and has had a goals against average ranging from 1.72 to 2.55. in his career. While there are many issues that plagued the team, but buck usually stops at the Head Coach. Time will tell if Larry Courville can help turn around the team, but you can bet the biggest change is yet to come in the off-season. Contact the author at Brian.Jennings@prohockeynews.com
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