New Blackhawks coach Jeff Blashill brings hope but faces daunting task

All Jeff Blashill has to do is develop Connor Bedard into a superstar like Connor McDavid, turn Frank Nazar into a co-No. 1 center à la Leon Draisaitl, create roles for a half-dozen or more other young forwards, foster a harmonious setting in which the Chicago Blackhawks’ bevy of talented under-23 defensemen can flourish and compete for playing time rather than squabble over playing time, install a system that masks the inevitable defensive deficiencies any young team will have, oversee the eventual transition from the Nick Foligno captaincy to the Bedard or Nazar or Alex Vlasic captaincy, improve the team by, say, 20 or so standings points in his first year and chart a path back to the playoffs in a division that already has five postseason locks that aren’t going anywhere in Winnipeg, Dallas, Colorado, St. Louis and Minnesota, with Utah a couple years ahead of them in the process.

That’s all. No biggie.

The appeal of the Blackhawks head coaching job is obvious. It’s a brand-name team in a world-class city with a huge fan base, a whip-smart general manager, a patient owner with deep pockets and a prospect pool full of tantalizing talents who are either knocking on the door or have already knocked it down.

Six of general manager Kyle Davidson’s eight first-round picks from the last three years are already in the NHL, and all of them either show tremendous promise or are proven commodities. Anyone who watched the last few weeks of the season knows the potential in Chicago right now. There are only 32 of these coaching jobs in the world, and as bad as the Blackhawks have been the last few seasons, this is still a primo gig.

Of course, Blashill wanted it.

But the potential pitfalls of the head coaching job are evident, too. It’s a franchise that hasn’t finished a season in the playoff picture since 2017. The team has finished dead last in the Central Division and second to last in the Western Conference for three straight seasons. The patience of Davidson and owner Danny Wirtz has outstripped the patience of a fan base still longing for the glory days of the early 2010s.

Mitch Marner, the only franchise-changing free agent on the market, is something of a long shot to sign in Chicago, so any progress is likely going to have to come from within.

The reality is the Blackhawks are still probably a few years away from any sort of contention, and coaches rarely get that long of a runway. After all, Blashill is the Blackhawks’ sixth head coach since the fall of 2018. The coaching game is brutal, and the task facing Blashill is daunting. The long-awaited turning of the corner has to happen under his watch, or he’ll be another blip on the radar, another forgettable name just passing through.

After Joel Quenneville was fired, then-general manager Stan Bowman tapped 33-year-old wunderkind Jeremy Colliton to keep the Blackhawks’ championship window propped open.

He failed. Two weeks into his tenure as GM, Davidson fired Colliton.

Davidson then installed Rockford IceHogs coach Derek King. His directive was simple: Lighten the mood after an abysmal start and the devastating revelations of the Jenner & Block report. King managed to do that, but the team was sub-. 500 under him with little tangible progress to speak of.

He failed. Davidson replaced him with his first real hire, Luke Richardson.

Richardson’s job was odd. He was handed the keys to a team that was intentionally designed to lose to get the best chance to draft Bedard. His mission was to keep the vibes high in the face of utter hopelessness. He sort of succeeded in that regard, but Bedard’s stagnation and the continued losing cost him his job a couple of months into his third season at the helm.

He failed. Davidson again elevated the IceHogs coach to be interim coach — this time, Anders Sörensen.

Sörensen’s background included a lot of work as a skills coach, so his job was quite clear: Make Bedard and the other talented young Blackhawks better. Chicago was a little more offensive and a little more creative under Sörensen, and he deserves some credit for how much better the team looked after dumping some ballast at the trade deadline. But he lost more than twice as many games as he won, going 17-30-9.

In other words, he failed. Godspeed, Mr. Blashill.

King was there for positivity. Richardson was set up to fail. Sörensen was there for development. Blashill, on the other hand, has to be a real NHL head coach. He has to do all the things that were expected of his three predecessors, but also win games. He has to install a system that allows his players to thrive and compete. He has to build not just a positive culture, but a winning one, something that hasn’t been seen in Chicago in nearly a decade. He has to turn the Blackhawks from a prospect pool into a team, from a promise to a threat, from potential to preeminence.

Davidson’s counting on it. Because while he’s got Wirtz firmly in his corner, you only get so many hires in this job.

“Jeff is an incredibly smart and talented coach who boasts more than 25 years of coaching experience across developmental leagues, the NHL and the world stage,” Davidson said in a released statement. “He’s thrived when in a position to develop young players and has shown he’s capable of blending that into overall team success, a vision and philosophy we share for where we are today, and where we see our team in the future. We couldn’t be more excited for what’s to come under Jeff’s direction.”

Early indications are that the fan base doesn’t exactly share that excitement. But other than David Carle (who stayed at the University of Denver) and Mike Sullivan (who was a lock to go to the New York Rangers), who would have moved the needle? Blashill’s seven-year tenure as Detroit Red Wings coach doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence, but he, like so many of the recent Blackhawks coaches, wasn’t exactly set up for success by management. Detroit GM Steve Yzerman’s plan did Blashill no favors in his later years.

But it’s easy to talk yourself into Blashill. He’s spoken of very highly in the hockey world. Three years working alongside Tampa Bay’s Jon Cooper — widely regarded as the best coach in the NHL — can only make you better.

At 51 years old, Blashill is experienced but not ancient. He helped Detroit players such as Dylan Larkin, Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond become high-end players. And roll your eyes at the retread factor all you want, but conventional wisdom in coaching circles is that your second job is where you truly prove your worth, where you apply hard-learned lessons and come into your own. Hey, Bill Belichick was famously unsuccessful as a rookie coach in Cleveland, but when he got to New England five years later, he was suddenly a genius.

Can Blashill have a similar trajectory in Chicago? Sure. Maybe. And there’s reason to believe, to allow yourself to hope again. There’s raw talent and jaw-dropping speed everywhere you look. Maybe Blashill is the guy who can put it all together, who can not only develop all these young players but mold them into a team that can not only compete in the meatgrinder Central Division, but win in it. Maybe he’s just the right guy at just the right time.

Or maybe he’s a couple of years too early — the task too tall, the division too tough, the road too long — in which case he’ll be another footnote in Blackhawks history.

There’s been a lot of those lately.

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