COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Columbus Blue Jackets, seeking an experienced hand to develop their young players, hired veteran Ken Hitchcock as head coach Wednesday.

Former Philadelphia Flyers' Head Coach Ken Hitchcock watches his team practice during the first day of Flyers training camp in this Sept. 15, 2006 file photo, in Voorhees, N.J. The Columbus Blue Jackets, seeking an experienced hand to develop their crop of young players, hired veteran Ken Hitchcock as head coach Wednesday. Hitchcock, fired this season by the Philadelphia Flyers, was to be formally introduced as the team's fifth head coach at a news conference Thursday. (AP Photo/H. Rumph Jr)

Hitchcock, fired this season by the Philadelphia Flyers, was to be formally introduced as the team's fifth head coach at a news conference Thursday. Team president and general manager Doug MacLean announced Hitchcock's hiring shortly before the team took the ice against St. Louis.

Hitchcock said what appealed to him about the Blue Jackets was more than their core of young players.

"It's that, but it's also that they have veteran players who have won the Stanley Cup before, guys who know what it takes," he said. "They've got people like Sergei Fedorov, Adam Foote and Fredrik Modin who know what it takes to win."

Hitchcock was asked if he would be behind the bench when the Blue Jackets play his former team, the Flyers, on Friday afternoon in Philadelphia.

"You bet," he said twice.

The 54-year-old Hitchcock replaces interim head coach Gary Agnew, an assistant to Gerard Gallant who was elevated to the top job after Gallant was fired on Nov. 14.

"He's a winner. He's a guy that pushes people to the limit. And we have a lot of guys that need to be pushed," MacLean said during the first intermission of the Blue Jackets game.

MacLean confirmed that the other finalist was Andy Murray, who went 215-202-63-7 as head coach of the Los Angeles Kings from 1999-06.

Hitchcock's new contract runs through the 2008-09 season and is believed to be in the range of the $1.2 million annually he received from the Flyers.

The Blue Jackets came into Wednesday night's game with the worst record in the NHL at 5-13-1-0 and riding a six-game losing skid.

Columbus has had a reputation for being a talented but soft team which features young stars such as Rick Nash and Nikolai Zherdev. Nash scored 41 goals during the 2003-04 season to share the Maurice Richard Trophy as the NHL's leading goal-scorer with Calgary's Jarome Iginla and Atlanta's Ilya Kovalchuk.

Zherdev has scored some of the most photogenic goals in the team's brief history but both he and Nash are not considered two-way players willing to help out on defense and in the neutral zone.

Despite a roster that also includes proven pros Fedorov, Modin, Foote, David Vyborny and Anson Carter, the Blue Jackets are last in the NHL in goals this season with 40 in their 19 games.

Hitchcock, with 408 career NHL victories in 750 games, is seen as a veteran disciplinarian who sets high expectations for his players and then grinds at them until they reach them. In 503 games as coach of the Dallas Stars from 1996-02, he had a record of 277-166-60-7. He guided the Stars to the Stanley Cup in 1999.

As those young stars he had helped transform into superstars got older, his effectiveness was seen by some to have waned and he was fired 50 games into the 2001-02 season.

He earned a gold medal as an associate coach with Team Canada at the 2002 Winter Olympics.

During the following offseason, he became the 15th head coach of the Flyers. They made the playoffs each of their three seasons under Hitchcock but many were disappointed with early knockouts in the playoffs despite a lineup that included Peter Forsberg and Simon Gagne.

When the Flyers got off to a 1-6-1-0 start this season, Hitchcock was fired in a purge that also saw general manager and former Flyers star Bobby Clarke step down.

Gallant had coached the Blue Jackets for one full season and parts of two others but was fired last week because his team also got off to a slow start at 5-9-1-0.

Hitchcock cut his coaching teeth as the head coach at Kamloops of the Western Hockey League from 1984-90, posting a winning percentage of .693. He then spent three seasons with the Stars' top affiliate in the International Hockey League before taking over as the head coach midway through the 1995-96 season.

"We need to change the culture and I think he's the guy to do it," MacLean said. "We have taken a lot of heat and deservedly so. The fans had better expectations and I think there's no excuses. I just think it's a positive step. It's a crossroads and I think it's an important one."