The Washington Capitals have fired head coach Todd Reirden just days after being eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs.

“We have higher expectations for our team, and we felt a fresh approach in leadership was necessary,” Capitals senior vice president and general manager Brian MacLellan said in a post on the team’s website. “We would like to thank Todd for all of his hard work and efforts with our organization.

“Todd has been a big part of our team for more than half a decade, including our Stanley Cup run in 2018, and we wish him and his family all the best moving forward.”

The news comes three days after the team lost to the New York Islanders, led by former Capitals coach Barry Trotz, four games to one in a best-of-seven series.

The Capitals previously promoted Reirden from his top assistant job. He previously was an assistant coach for the Pittsburgh Penguins and head coach of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the American Hockey League. He also played in the NHL for four seasons.

Reirden replaced Trotz in 2018, who the Caps let leave instead of giving him a raise following the team’s Stanley Cup victory, according to ESPN.

Trotz became one of just five coaches in more than four decades to choose not to return to their teams after a Stanley Cup win, which was the first in the franchise’s history.

Reirden’s Caps went 48-26-8 in the 2018-2019 season with a first-place finish in the Metropolitan division, before bowing out in the first round of the playoffs. In 2019-2020, the team went 41-20-8 during the season, which was disrupted by the coronavirus.

The Caps’ loss last week marks the second year in a row that the team has made early exits from the playoffs, the first such consecutive failures since 2013 and 2014, which led to major personnel changes, the Associated Press reported.

“When you don’t come up on the winning end of it, it is disappointing and you have to look at why that has happened,” Reirden, 49, said after the team’s loss last week. “I am confident that I am a young coach that continues to improve and continues to get better and have been able to find success in the regular season and haven’t been able to find it in two completely different circumstances in the playoffs.”

This story was updated to clarify the number of games played in the Caps’ playoff run.