KITCHENER – The Kitchener Rangers announced Monday that head coach Jay McKee had been relieved of his coaching duties.

The team's general manager, Mike McKenzie, will fill in as interim head coach.

"Jay is obviously a good person, a good coach and someone I consider a friend so it's not a fun day," McKenzie told CTV.

"But it's part of the job and at the end of the day, my loyalty is to the Kitchener Rangers organization and making sure that we're heading in the right direction."

The announcement comes after a four-game losing streak, during which Kitchener has scored just six goals.

That's compared to the 18 goals scored against them in that stretch.

But McKenzie stresses that this wasn't necessarily because of the losing streak.

"At the end of the day I think it was the right choice and it wasn't just a knee jerk reaction to losing a few games in a row. We're trying to look at the bigger picture here and make sure we can get back on track."

So far on the season, the Rangers are last in the Western Conference with seven wins and 10 losses.

McKenzie says the decision to remove their head coach was done in an affort to salvage the season.

There aren't any plans in place for a new coach to replace McKee, who was promoted to head coach in 2016.