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The Ottawa Senators decided Friday morning there was no sense playing the waiting game with coach Guy Boucher.

With 18 games left in a lost season and sitting in last place overall, general manager Pierre Dorion decided he couldn’t sit sit still any longer and sent coach Guy Boucher packing.

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Associate coach Marc Crawford will take over for the balance of the regular season on an interim basis and he’ll be a candidate to be the club’s next head coach.

Photo by Nils Petter Nilsson/Ombrello / Getty Images

Boucher was informed of the change during a meeting early Friday at the Canadian Tire Centre and while the timing is surprising, the decision isn’t. Former Senators winger Chris Kelly, who is in the club’s player development department, has joined the staff for the rest of the season.

“We just felt as recently, as probably this morning, Guy wasn’t going to be our coach moving forward,” Dorion said at a hastily-called news conference. “For both parties, we just felt it was time to move on.”

Dorion said there was no point waiting because the club’s play has slipped.

Photo by Justin Tang / THE CANADIAN PRESS

“I’m not going to go into specific details,” Dorion said. “Today is a tough day for Guy Boucher and family. It’s a tough day personally. Guy and I had a relationship and I really enjoyed that relationship.

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“All I will tell you as that I pretty much made up my mind (Thursday) night, I wanted to sleep on it, I advised (owner) Eugene (Melnyk) this morning and I phoned Marc afterwards and when Guy came in I let him know he wasn’t going to be our coach anymore.”