The Chicago Blackhawks have been a struggle to watch this season based on how they’ve been performing, but you can’t just blame it all on head coach Jeremy Colliton.
The Chicago Blackhawks haven’t lived up to their expectations so far this season, and I’ve come to my senses that you can’t blame it all on head coach Jeremy Colliton. You just can’t. It seems that the Blackhawks are a very underwhelming team despite having some top-heavy talent on both sides of the ice – offense and defense.
You would think that having two outstanding goaltenders like Corey Crawford and Robin Lehner between the pipes combined with guys like Patrick Kane, Alex DeBrincat, Jonathan Toews, and Dylan Strome on the offensive side that they would be winning more than they have been. But that’s not the case. They have some really good games that they look good in and some games they just don’t look so great in.
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The coach always gets some sort of blame when the team isn’t performing well. But in the case of Colliton, he doesn’t deserve to get fired. I will admit that I was one of those fans that wanted him fired, but I’ve come to my senses. It’s not all his fault the team is underperforming.
The reason why you can’t blame Colliton for the Blackhawks underachieving so far this season is he wasn’t the one who built this team. Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman was the one who built this team, so therefore he should be the one who gets fired.
Blackhawks fans have been suffering from Bowman as our general manager since 2009. If Bowman didn’t trade away guys like Artemi Panarin, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Phillip Danault, Henri Jokiharju, or even Teuvo Teravainen, Colliton would look like a much better coach right now.
Yet another bad move by Bowman was to fire Joel Quenneville in order to bring on a young coach like Colliton. He will never be able to fill a legend’s shoes in Chicago like Quenneville. Bowman put a lot of pressure on Colliton and the players when he brought him in to replace Quenneville. He thought his new coach would immediately take over and the Blackhawks would start winning again.
The Blackhawks got off to a very slow start at the beginning of the year. They just didn’t look good at all. The main reason why was because they weren’t playing a style that fit their roster. They played the dump and chase style instead of trying to dictate play using their skill.
Then November came around and the Blackhawks looked like a completely different team on the ice, as they made a change to their system that allowed Kane and company to play the game to their strengths and pulled out a couple of big wins during November.
If Colliton allows this team to continue to play to their strengths and guys like Patrick Kane and co keep producing the way they should then we should be in good shape. If the Blackhawks were going to fire Colliton, they would’ve already done it, so it’s obviously not happening this season.