By Scott Powers, Mark Lazerus and Pierre LeBrun
The Chicago Blackhawks weren’t expected by anyone to be Stanley Cup contenders this season, but this season wasn’t supposed to be different. It was supposed to be better.
The Blackhawks weren’t accomplishing under Luke Richardson what general manager Kyle Davidson set out to do this season, which was to take a step forward and move out of the league’s cellar. The Blackhawks had finished 30th overall in the 2022-23 season and 31st in the 2023-24 season. But regardless of how this season went, it was always assumed Davidson would allow Richardson the full season to prove himself. The Blackhawks had an option after the season to walk from Richardson. But after 26 games, Davidson obviously had seen enough. Richardson was in the last year of a 3-year contract although the club had a 4th year option.
“As we have begun to take steps forward in our rebuilding process, we felt that the results did not match our expectations for a higher level of execution this season and ultimately came to the decision that a change was necessary,” Davidson said in a release. “We wish Luke and his family all the best moving forward.”
Thank you, Luke. We wish you and your family all the best in the future. pic.twitter.com/0dFOEZHCmn
— Chicago Blackhawks (@NHLBlackhawks) December 5, 2024
The losses were not only building up — the Blackhawks are last in the standings — but it was the way they were losing game after game. Richardson seemed to be trying everything and just not finding any answers. What came off as desperation from outside the organization likely appeared to be a failure on the inside. Richardson wasn’t making the necessary adjustments to change the outcomes. Davidson thought he put together a team that could win more than it has the past few seasons. With Richardson being fired Thursday, Davidson put the onus on the coaching above anyone else for why the Blackhawks aren’t where he expected them to be.
Anders Sorensen will serve as the interim coach for the rest of the season at which point the Blackhawks will conduct a coaching search process at that time.
Prioritizing Bedard’s development
This isn’t Davidson’s first big move by a long shot — he fired then-coach Jeremy Colliton less than two weeks into his own tenure as interim GM, then hired Richardson, then cut ties with the likes of Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Alex DeBrincat, Dylan Strome and Kirby Dach. But this is the first major decision Davidson has made in this stage of the rebuild — post-tank, post-Connor Bedard. Bedard’s development is the single most important part of the Blackhawks’ long-term plan right now, and despite his vastly improved all-around play, Bedard’s middling numbers (five goals and 14 assists in 26 games) while Richardson changed his linemates on a near game-to-game basis didn’t help the coach’s cause. — Mark Lazerus, senior NHL writer
What’s next in Chicago
Now Davidson has to decide what kind of coach he wants to bring in. The last two — Colliton and Richardson — were both first-time NHL head coaches, and both had very unsuccessful tenures. There are veteran coaches available, experienced names such as Gerard Gallant, Bruce Boudreau and Jay Woodcroft (the reinstated Joel Quenneville obviously will not be a candidate in Chicago). So Sorensen, whose only head coaching job ever was in Rockford for the past two-plus seasons, will have to do something special to get the job on a permanent basis. The NHL success of young defensemen such as Alex Vlasic and Wyatt Kaiser after their stints in Rockford, as well as Frank Nazar’s stellar start to the IceHogs’ season, bodes well for Sorensen, however. — Lazerus
Sorensen gets a shot
Sorensen has climbed the ladder within the Blackhawks over the last 10 years. He was still coaching the Chicago Mission, a AAA team, when he was first hired by Stan Bowman to be a development coach. Over time, he was given more and more development responsibility. He became a Rockford IceHogs assistant during the 2018-19 season and was named the IceHogs interim head coach during the 2021-22 season when Derek King was promoted to the NHL. Sorensen was then made permanent head coach and had been in that position until Thursday.— Scott Powers, senior NHL writer
Required reading
- Which bad NHL teams’ fans might be nearing a tipping point of hopelessness?
- Blackhawks paid Tyler Bertuzzi to provide offense. So far, he isn’t delivering
(Photo: Jonathan Kozub / Getty Images)
