Players excited that Blackhawks decided to retain coach Marc Crawford
Good call.
That was the overwhelming sentiment in the Blackhawks dressing room on Monday's decision to retain assistant coach Marc Crawford, who was under investigation for verbal and physical abuse.
"He's definitely been missed and all of us will be excited to have him back," Patrick Kane said before the Hawks hosted Colorado on Wednesday.
Crawford will not resume his duties until Jan. 2 when the Hawks are at Vancouver. The Hawks released a statement Monday evening announcing the findings of an independent investigation. It included a four-paragraph apology by Crawford to former NHL players Sean Avery, Brent Sopel, Harold Druken and Patrick O'Sullivan.
"I got into coaching to help people, and to think that my actions in any way caused harm to even one player fills me with tremendous regret and disappointment in myself," Crawford said.
The 58-year-old coach, who was an assistant in Ottawa from 2016-19, was hired by the Hawks in the off-season. He has been in counseling since 2010 and talked to the team about how the league has changed over the past decade.
"Marc's done some stuff on his own the last handful of years trying to improve," said Hawks defenseman Brent Seabrook. "(Before the season opener) we had a meeting when we were over in Prague and he was talking about a lot of different things. ...
"He mentioned the league's changing and it's different and he's enjoying it. Even at the start of the year he was making comments like that.
"It's good to have him back. I've really enjoyed having him for the first part of the year."
Seabrook added he was happy the Hawks took their time with the investigation and that they talked "to a lot of different parties that were involved."
Toughen up:
Duncan Keith, who returned from a nine-game absence and had 10 shot attempts during the Hawks' 4-1 loss to Colorado on Wednesday, said the Hawks need to start playing with more emotion.
"It's not going to just turn around," Keith said after the Hawks fell to 13-16-6. "It's not going to just happen. We need to make it happen.
"We need to get a little (honked) off. We can go over the Xs and Ox and all this stuff, but everybody - myself included - let's play with a little more energy, a little more grit. (Be) a little mean out there."
That's gotta hurt:
Late in the third period Wednesday, Colorado's Samuel Girard laid a crunching hit on Alex DeBrincat. The Hawks forward went flying into the end boards and collapsed to the ice in obvious pain.
DeBrincat managed to slowly skate to the bench after laying on the ice for about a minute.
Hawks coach Jeremy Colliton thought it should have been a boarding penalty against Girard, but Keith disagreed.
"I thought he was finishing his hit," Keith said. "You don't like to see Alex take a hit like that, but they're playing hard too, right? That's the way we need to play."