Skip to main content

End of an Era - Blackhawks Fire Coach Joel Quenneville, Rest of Coaching Staff



CHICAGO, IL -- Well.

 This has put me in a terrible mood.

Let me start by saying that as soon as the Los Angeles Kings fired their coach just a few days ago, I worried this would happen. I worried a lot, actually, even though most reporters and writers were looking to the St. Louis Blues or Detroit Red Wings to toss their coaches to the curb.

 For once, my overthinking proved me right. See you all in therapy.

 In all seriousness, this is a joke (wow, what an oxymoron). I was going to try and be professional about this, but I can't. If Hawks GM Stan Bowman thinks this is going to magically fix everything wrong about this team, he's sorely mistaken.

 This team has been doomed for the past few years, and every little misstep leads back to the front office. Trading away key players like Niklas Hjalmarsson, Bryan Bickell, Andrew Shaw, Artemi Panarin, Ryan Hartman, Vinnie Hinostroza, Teuvo Teravainen, and Trevor van Reimsdyk, and signing basically useless players like Brandon Manning, Chris Kunitz and Cam Ward (he's the exception, but only conditionally) is ridiculous and frankly unacceptable.

 On top of that, he traded away and then decided to bring back (mostly unsuccessfully) Patrick Sharp, Johnny Oduya, and Brandon Saad, Andrew Ladd--guys who probably should have never been dealt in the first place.

 I'm honestly surprised he still has his job.

 Oh, yeah, by the way--it wasn'yt just Coach Q that got the boot--assistant coaches Kevin Dineen and Ulf Samuelsson were relieved of their positions as well, leaving just Don Granato and Jimmy Waite left to pick up the pieces with a new coach.

 And, boy, it'll be interesting to see where this season goes with new coach Jeremy Colliton stepping in with assistant coach Barry Smith. You'll recognize Colliton's name--he was the head coach down with the Rockford Ice Hogs last season, and led them to the Calder Cup playoffs last year. Colliton is only 33 years old, making him the youngest coach in the NHL right now--that both excites and worries me.

 He only has two years of professional coaching under his belt, which might be a little unsettling, but I'm going to try and give him a chance. He did play with Brent Seabrook for Team Canada in World Juniors, which is an interesting connection, and he did play with the New York Islanders until he retired officially in 2014.

 I'm not thrilled, but I'm not ready to write him off. Just as when Q stepped in ten years ago for Denis Savard, this was not Colliton's fault, and I do think we as fans owe him a chance.

 So, at the end of the day, where do I stand with all of this?

 I do think it was a hard decision to make on the front office's end--and certainly not a rash decision. This was something that had been brewing for a while, I just thought they'd let the season play out first. That doesn't mean it was the right decision.

 Obviously, there are pros and cons here, but I really do think that the pros of Coach Q outweighed the cons. Sure, he was tough on younger players, and he had a rigid system that excluded many players, and he had a penchant for putting players that didn't fit his system into the dog house.

 But, he also led this organization, this team, to three Stanley Cups. The Blackhawks were virtually unstoppable from the 2009-10 season all the way through the 2015-16 season. The past two or three years have seen a decline, but I'd still venture to say that the 2016-17 season Hawks were contenders--they just didn't show it in the playoffs.

 I've seen #ThankYouQ trending on Twitter all morning, and it should be. He has done so much for this organization, and this was a--pardon my French--very, very shitty way for the front office to handle this situation.

 I also unfortunately think it makes room for a lot more change, and really sets the tone for the rest of the season. If there's one thing we've learned about this team, no one is safe from being thrown to the wolves.

 I think you all can gather who I think should be next.

 There's a big storm coming, fellas. You can either choose to weather whatever comes our way with me, or you can drop off.

 I'll ask this again: are you in?

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Checking In - Breaking Down the Blackhawks' Play Over a Month

CHICAGO, IL — I’m going to be absolutely real with you—I had no idea what to write about for the blog this week. I’ve written about the Blackhawks being good, bad, and everything in between, I’ve written about Patrick Kane a couple times now (#Kane4Hart), and I’ve even written about the best goal celebrations from the Hawks this season. The idea tank is running dry, my friends. So, I thought we could throw it back to a post I made a while back about what the Hawks really needed to do to make the playoffs, and grade them on how well they're meeting all three of those items a couple of weeks later. Let's just get right on into it, shall we? 1) With 27 games left, you have to go 18-9 to get to the 88-90-point range that would potentially get them into the playoffs. So, the Hawks currently sit at 71 points through 70 games, and since the date of this article (February 8th), the Hawks have gone 9-6, which is not terrible, but also only gives them a b...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blackhawks Fire Assistant Coach Mike Kitchen

CHICAGO, IL -- GM Stan Bowman is keeping to his word about making changes, I guess. This may seem like a surprise to a lot of fans, but honestly, I can't say I'm overly surprised. Kitchen was mostly responsible for the power play and penalty-killing units. It's not an exaggeration to suggest that both units were more than disappointing this season--especially when it really mattered and they needed to be strong. But, Kitchen was a good assistant coach. He saw the last two Stanley Cups with the Blackhawks, starting after the 2009-2010 season with the Hawks. Up until this year, the penalty killing and power play has been stellar--but, obviously something changed. Still, I'm not sure anyone expected Bowman to make changes this quickly, or in this fashion. I think this likely sets the stage for what to expect this summer, which could be shocking to some fans this summer. I'm not even entirely sure who is safe on the roster or coaching staff (except Coach Q, w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Measuring the Blackhawks Rookies and Newbies

CHICAGO, IL -- I know I did a quick measure of the entire Blackhawks roster back in February, but I thought since the season is likely coming to a close (save for a miracle), it might be nice to get an idea of where the newbies and rookies to the Hawks roster are. For this article, I did create some guidelines, like I did with the mid-season report cards (end of season report cards are coming soon, by the way!). This isn't really going to be a report card, but more of just my general thoughts on how the player is doing in his first season with the Hawks--I'll give a more specific/"graded" report in the post-season report cards article. The basic guidelines are as follows: Must be currently on the Hawks roster (not in Rockford) Must have played less than 82 NHL games OR less than 82 games with the Blackhawks (all stats will be just for this season to make things easy) Must be their first full year playing with the Blackhawks With that out of...
Post a Comment
Read more