Well, We Still Have Kane…

In the past 10 months, the Blackhawks have cycled through three head coaches. Jeremy Colliton started the 2021 season with a 1-9-2 record and was quickly fired and replaced by Derek King, acting as an interim head coach. Derek King carried the team throughout the rest of the season, but his ending record of 27-33-10 didn’t meet the expectations of retaining the head coaching position. On June 27^th, the Blackhawks announced that Luke Richardson had been hired as head coach.

My initial reaction was, “Who the heck is Luke Richardson?” and many Hawks fans joined me in that reaction. Richardson has been an Assistant Coach for the Ottawa Senators, New York Islanders, and Montreal Canadiens in recent years. During his 21 seasons in the NHL, Richardson was a physical, stay-at-home defenseman, someone the Hawks’ defense could learn from. Overall, management decided that Richardson would be the perfect head coach to grow with the team, but only time will tell if he will live up to that expectation. 

After the Kyle Beach case came to light, the former GM, Stan Bowman, made the right decision to resign. Kyle Davidson took over as the interim GM and was promoted to the team’s permanent GM in March. When this was announced, I saw a light at the end of this tunnel of loss, and that light was a new GM to finally save the franchise from becoming the next Arizona Coyotes. This light quickly started to fade as Davidson began to make his first moves as GM. Davidson’s first trade absolutely gutted the Blackhawks fan base and he didn’t stop there. 

As it came time for Davidson to make his first trade before the deadline, he decided to trade away Brandon Hagel, one of the team’s top scorers, and one of my favorite players. Hagel was traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning in exchange for Boris Katchouk, Taylor Raddysh, and a 2023 & 2024 1^st round pick. When I saw what we received, I was relieved; Tampa Bay got absolutely fleeced in this trade. Although it sucks to lose Hagel, I can’t argue with that big of a return, and for that reason, I let Davidson slide. I still had hope, but that hope was diminishing. As the NHL draft approached, the rumor mill was never-ending. The main one? Alex Debrincat was getting traded. I denied this one til the very end. I thought there was no way Davidson would trade away a player that can be the key to the rebuild. I thought wrong. Not only did they trade away Debrincat, but they got pocket change in return. In exchange for Debrincat, the Ottawa Senators sent the 2022 7^th overall pick & second-round pick, as well as a 3^rd round pick in 2024. This isn’t anywhere near what a player with Debrincat’s skill set is worth. This trade is what turned that light at the end of the tunnel into black.