Quenneville staying put, defends dismissing Haviland
Before he even began talking about the dismissal of assistant coach Mike Haviland on Tuesday, Blackhawks head coach Joel Quenneville wanted to clear the air about rumors that he may be headed to Montreal to join good buddy Marc Bergevin, who was just named GM of the Canadiens.
"There was some speculation on other things that were going on here in Chicago about me being somewhere else," said Quenneville, who has two years remaining on his contract. "But first and foremost, I'm excited about being here in Chicago. I love the opportunity, I love the organization, I love where we're heading in the future and that's something I wanted to put to bed right from the outset."
OK, now on to the Haviland dismissal after four years as an assistant with the Hawks.
"I had the assessment that there is some dysfunction with our coaching staff, that we needed a change," Quenneville said. "(General manager Stan Bowman) offered me the opportunity, for the first time since I've been here, to make a coaching change.
"I felt like a change was necessary."
And he knows he'll probably catch some heat because most people thought it would be assistant Mike Kitchen, not Haviland, whose head would roll because of a lackluster - at best - power play.
"Some people look at it that I chose to keep a friend or a buddy (in Kitchen), I don't look at people like that," Quenneville said. "I think there's a misconception on how Kitch is been viewed.
"Kitch is getting blamed for the power play. These are facts: last year our power play was fourth in the league and our penalty killing was 25th. Kitch had the power play."
Quenneville changed up coaching roles to start this season.
"We made the change and after 15 games our PP was 30th in the league so we went back," he said. "Kitch got the PP back and Havvy got the penalty kill. The numbers weren't good."
"And then it was like all of a sudden our whole team ... the problem was Kitch. It's not about Kitch, it's about us as a team making our power play better collectively."