The Chicago Blackhawks unceremoniously fired Joel Quenneville as their head coach. He deserved far better.
Four faces will be remembered most for the Chicago Blackhawks dynasty that saw the franchise capture three Stanley Cups in six seasons – Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, and the recently fired former coach Joel Quenneville.
Quenneville was relieved of his duties after 10 seasons with the Blackhawks after only a month into the 2018-19 season. Through 15 games the coach had helped Chicago earn a 6-6-3 record, which is exactly where many expected the club to be.
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Many expected the club to be hovering around the .500 mark, if not worse, due to the poor job management has done in providing any additional talent to the roster. Toews, Kane, and Keith have been the mainstays with few others, but beyond the trio, the drop off in talent is borderline pathetic.
Quenneville had done his best in recent years to keep the Blackhawks competitive with limited weapons to work with. Instead of management finding creative ways to re-tool the roster they simply chose to bring back former Blackhawks over and over in a desperate attempt to maintain one last run with the core roster.
Players like Patrick Sharp, Marcus Kruger, Andrew Ladd, and Brandon Saad have all departed and returned to Chicago performing nowhere near the level they were at during their first stint with the club. It’s not the fault of the players as age has played a major role in the decline of their performances. However, it is the fault of management who have failed to provide the Blackhawks with the necessary support pieces needed to win.
Instead of finding a way to keep Artemi Panarin, management rushed to trade him to avoid a contract dispute. Instead of keeping a 23-year old point producer with upside and a contract earning less than a $1 million in Ryan Hartman, the cap scrapped team chose to puzzlingly trade him at last year’s trade deadline.
After a lost season a year ago where Chicago missed the playoffs for the first time since Quenneville took over as coach, management chose to bring Quenneville back. After all, it wasn’t Quenneville’s fault Corey Crawford suffered a concussion at the end of December and never played another game for the remainder of the season. Losing a No. 1 goaltender for more than half the season is as close to a fatal blow as it gets in the NHL.
Despite the glaring needs of offensive depth staring management in the face, Blackhawks management chose to sit on their hands all summer and do nothing. The team’s biggest offseason acquisition came in the form of 39-year old Chris Kunitz. Kunitz has no goals and two assists in 14 games along with the second-worst plus/minus rating on the team at minus-six.
How was Quenneville supposed to improve a non-playoff team from a year ago by only adding Kunitz to the roster? How did the second-winningest coach in Blackhawks history deserve to lose his job with this mess of a roster to work with?
Truth to be told, it’s likely Chicago wanted to can Quenneville after last season. The rumor mill was running rampant with rumors Quenneville could be out once the season ended but it appeared as if backlash from the Blackhawk fan base, that emerged upon those rumors, saved Quenneville at the time.
Otherwise it doesn’t make sense to fire Quenneville now only a month into the season. Chicago is still competitive within the most competitive division in the league. The team still didn’t have Crawford to start the year as the goaltender has played in only seven games this season as he attempts to recapture his game after a lengthy absence. Why not give Quenneville more time with Crawford in hopes the goaltender can return the level he was once at?
It’s not like Quenneville isn’t getting the most out of his two star forwards either. Kane is off to a scorching start to the year with 19 points in 14 games. Toews, after his lowest point total in five seasons a year ago, is having one of the best starts to a season he’s ever had with 13 points in 15 games.
Nothing about firing Quenneville now makes sense just like nothing Blackhawks management has done in recent years makes sense. This isn’t a case of a new voice needed to spark the club. This is a bad case of poor roster decision after poor roster decision and management firing the coach to deflect blame.
Quenneville deserved much better from the franchise he helped win three Stanley Cups. Quenneville deserved much better from the franchise he helped turn into a dynasty. Three games shy of 800 in Chicago, the coach ends his tenure with an incredible record of 452-249-96. Imagine how much more that record could have climbed if management ever gave him more than Toews, Kane, and Keith to work with in recent years?
Coach Q won’t be out of a job long as several teams across the league are likely looking at their current coaching situation and questioning if they should upgrade by bringing Quenneville in. Todd McLellan, you’ve officially been put on notice.