Crawford joins Colliton's Chicago Blackhawks staff

The Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday hired 58-year-old Marc Crawford - who won a Stanley Cup as head coach of the Colorado Avalanche in 1996 - to be one of Jeremy Colliton's assistants.

"I love the fact that I get to work with a great, young coach in Jeremy," Crawford said in a conference call. "I think we're going to hit it off terrifically."

Crawford, who has 556 NHL coaching victories, was an assistant in Ottawa last season and finished as the interim head coach. In addition to the Senators and Avs, Crawford has coached Vancouver (1998-2006), Los Angeles (2006-08) and Dallas (2009-11).

In 1995, he was the youngest coach to be named coach of the year after going 30-13-5.

Crawford didn't want to "pigeonhole" himself into one role with the Hawks, saying he has "extensive experience" running the power play and the penalty kill. His hope is that everyone on Colliton's staff - which includes Sheldon Brookbank, Tomas Mitell, goaltending coach Jimmy Waite, video coach Matt Meacham and assistant video coach Dylan Crawford (Marc's son) - works well together and eventually develops chemistry that is second to none.

"The chemistry of a coaching staff is always very, very important," Crawford said. "I know from my standpoint I'm going to do everything I can to make the chemistry of this Chicago Blackhawks staff the best that it could ever be."

Crawford was disappointed he wasn't named head coach of the Senators, but he's also extremely excited about joining an Original Six franchise.

He expects to help Colliton with other teams' players, how their coaching staffs prepare, the idiosyncrasies of opposing buildings, how do deal with on- and off-ice officials and much more.

And if it all comes together, he also hopes he's a small part of two other things: helping to bring another championship to Chicago and turning Colliton into a well-respected coach.

"We have a lot of similarities," Crawford said. "He came in as a 33-year-old coach and so did I. Hopefully I can help him have a long and illustrious career, and hopefully we can find a way to bring the Blackhawks back to the promised land and see if we can find a way to win another Cup.

"I'd like nothing better, and I'm looking forward to that challenge."