Blackhawks fire head coach Jeremy Colliton

[Brewin Flames]

Blackhawks fire head coach Jeremy Colliton

By Adam GretzNov 6, 2021, 3:24 PM EDT

Mike Stobe, Getty Images

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Jeremy Colliton is out as head coach of the Chicago Blackhawks following a dismal start to the 2021-22 regular season that has seen the team win just one of its first 12 games.

 

Assistant coaches Tomas Mitell and Sheldon Brookbank were also let go.

 

Derek King will take over as the Blackhawks’ interim head coach.

 

 

The team also announced that Marc Crawford, Jimmy Waite, Matt Meacham and Dylan Crawford will maintain their current assistant coaching duties.

 

The Blackhawks made the announcement on Saturday afternoon, less than 24 hours after another embarrassing loss (5-1 to the Winnipeg Jets) on Friday night that saw them give up two early goals and offer no push back in the second and third periods.

 

“Our on-ice goal remains the same: to build an elite system of hockey – and we have not delivered on that,” Blackhawks interim general manager Kyle Davidson said in a statement released by the team. “The fact is our play and competitiveness must improve. Every game, every shift. Today’s coaching changes are difficult, especially given the incredible personal connections Jeremy and others have made with our players in their development. We appreciate Jeremy’s contributions to the organization over the last three seasons, and we wish him and his family the best.

 

 

We appreciate Derek’s willingness to step in behind the bench as we embark on our search for our next permanent head coach. His NHL experience as a player and work with our younger players in Rockford over the last four years gives us great confidence in his ability to lead the Chicago Blackhawks in this interim role.”

Colliton has been the Blackhawks’ head coach since replacing Joel Quenneville early in the 2018-19 season. They compiled an 87-92-26 record during his tenure. They qualified for the playoffs just one time, but even that comes with an asterisk as it was during the 2019-20 bubble season when they were included in the league’s Return To Play as the 23rd ranked team in the league. In a normal season and normal playoff format they would not have been close to a playoff team in the Western Conference.

 

During Colliton’s time behind the Chicago bench the team was consistently one of the worst defensive teams in hockey and showed little to no improvement from year to year.

That had to be especially frustrating this season given all of the changes the Blackhawks made to the roster in the offseason.

 

These early struggles are not the result of a team that was going through a teardown or a rebuild. They got their captain and No. 1 center, Jonathan Toews, back in the lineup after he missed all of the 2020-21 season, and then spent major money by adding defensemen Seth Jones, Caleb Jones, and Jake McCabe, forward Tyler Johnson, and most significantly of all, reigning Vezina Trophy goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.

 

This is a team trying to win, making the results even more staggering.

 

Not only has Chicago managed just four out of a possible 24 points in the standings so far, the manner in which it has gotten there has been especially concerning. The Blackhawks never seem ready to play, giving up an early goal on an almost nightly basis and almost never playing with the lead. They have given up the first goal within the first six minutes of a game six times this season, including three times within the first minute. They have trailed by at least two goals within the first six minutes on three different occasions.

All of that is just too much for the team to overcome.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Brewin Flames

[pilldoc]

And anyone is surprised how????

 

this team is an utter and complete train wreck….

[Brewin Flames]

Honestly, and perhaps it's just my opinion, he was a terrible hire to begin with, and i think they tuned him out awhile ago.

[TropicalFruitGirl26]

47 minutes ago, pilldoc said:

And anyone is surprised how????

 

this team is an utter and complete train wreck….

 

Other than pointing towards behind the scenes stuff with investigations going on, one would be hard pressed to put their finger on what, exactly, is the problem here!

The Blackhawks HAVE talent!
Toews, Kane, DeBrincat, Kubalik, Dach, Strome, De Haan, Jones, Fleury....
Yet they are playing like a freakin pre-Vegas expansion team!

Underperformance by some players, yes, no real defensive structure to speak of, I get that.
But you'd think, at least, with the players they have, scoring wouldn't be an issue....yet that is a problem as well.

But why??

Who knows.
So off go the heads of the coaching staff.

I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of a diehard Hawks fan to see what I would like done to help remedy things.
I can't think of anything right now.
Crazy.

[yave1964]

This was not a firing so much as a mercy killing.....

 

  When a team is hyped as much as the Hawks were this year and they shat the bed, well, you cannot fire 21 players so the coach is always the one to go. Truth? I felt sorry for anyone who had to follow up the brilliant run under Quenneville, they were more or less doomed add in some very overrated signings and trades this offseason and it was bound to end this way.

[J0e Th0rnton]

Years ago, I insisted Toews and Kane's cap hits would cripple the team and their ability to retain talent and compete.

 

Some argued they were so good and clutch that they could play with a 3rd and 4th line of rookies and bad bottom 3 dmen and win.

 

Time has been favorable to my views lol

 

 

[yave1964]

So Colliton is gone, a quick review of his replacement.

 

Derek King was a cerebral solid forward who could play on any of the top three lines and did, mostly for the Isles and Leafs. His career 830 games, 261 goals 612 points with size and a rep as someone you did not want to mess with on the ice.  He spent the last 4 years of his career with the Grand Rapids Griffins as a player/coach before retiring in 2004.

 

  Since retiring he became an assistant coach for the Marlies for six years then moved to the Hawks organization as an assistant for the AHL Icehogs then four years ago becoming head coach and earning a well deserved rep in the AHL as a fantastic game manager. Of the current Hawks roster, Debrincat, Beaudin, Hagel, Etnwistle, Dach, Kurachev, Mitchell, Gaudette, Hardman, Phillips, Murphy, Johnson and Lankinen have all played for him. Also, there is nobody in the organization who knows the up and coming players in the minors or still in Juniors as well as king.

 

  Look, I dont think for a minute the team turns things around the way the Blues did a few years ago when they brought in Berube after a sluggish start but this is the right man at the right time for the right team. A damn good hire.

[OccamsRazor]

On 11/6/2021 at 4:00 PM, pilldoc said:

this team is an utter and complete train wreck….

 

 

What about this ass hat when are they going to remove him from hockey???

 

 

He has to go...

 

[lynxrattle]

3 hours ago, OccamsRazor said:

 

 

What about this ass hat when are they going to remove him from hockey???

 

 

He has to go...

 

Definitely. He's totally clueless.

[flyercanuck]

"We're not going to talk about Kyle Beach. We're not going to talk about 2010. We're moving on."

 

 

So the cup didn't happen either?

[OccamsRazor]

1 hour ago, flyercanuck said:

"We're not going to talk about Kyle Beach. We're not going to talk about 2010. We're moving on."

 

 

So the cup didn't happen either?

 

I guess this guy should be drug into a back alley and beaten real good with his shirt pulled over his head and left there...goon style.

 

We all already knew he doesn't really care but this is all the proof you need to confirm for sure.

 

[ruxpin]

1 hour ago, OccamsRazor said:

 

I guess this guy should be drug into a back alley and beaten real good with his shirt pulled over his head and left there...goon style.

 

We all already knew he doesn't really care but this is all the proof you need to confirm for sure.

 

What's really disturbing is he thinks the question was about 2010. I'm not sure who that was who started to try to answer, but clearly he understood the diarrhea disaster coming from Rocky's facial sphincter.

[Math]

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