Chicago Blackhawks: I was wrong about Jeremy Colliton

After a bad losing streak, the Chicago Blackhawks fired legendary coach Joel Quenneville in November. Many fans (including me) were upset, but it’s now clear this was the right move.

The Chicago Blackhawks suddenly find themselves in the hunt for the eighth and final playoff spot in the NHL’s western conference. It’s made this team entertaining again, and made me re-evaluate some thoughts I had earlier this season.

While some fans may not want to admit it, it’s becoming more clear that firing longtime head coach Joel Quenneville was the right move.

This was a team that was going in the completely wrong direction just a couple of months ago. They lost eight games in a row at one point and were tied for the worst record in the NHL.

Quenneville’s replacement was the 34-year-old Jeremy Colliton, who was the coach of the AHL’s Rockford IceHogs before making the jump to being an NHL coach. Colliton had just one season of coaching experience in the AHL.

At the time, it didn’t make sense to most fans and I was definitely one of them. I wrote this article about how firing Quenneville at that time was the wrong move. I shifted a lot of the blame to the front office as well as the team’s lackluster defense.

Colliton addressed the defensive issues with the team head-on, switching most of their defensive plans to a man-to-man scheme rather than a zone defense. He asked forward to play more defensively. So far, it seems to have worked pretty well.

The Blackhawks won seven straight games earlier this month, and continue to fight for that final playoff spot in the west.

It won’t be easy to make the playoffs as other division rivals like the Minnesota Wild and Colorado Avalanche are in the hunt, but it was hard to imagine this type of push to the playoffs back in November.

Even if the Hawks fall short of the postseason, Colliton deserves a lot of credit. In my earlier article, I heaped most of the blame for the team’s losing ways on the front office. I argued hiring Colliton was another misstep by GM Stan Bowman.

But I’ll give Bowman credit, he took a risk and it definitely has paid off. Colliton could have a bright future here, and the front office is making moves to ensure this team can compete.

Bowman made a deal with the Arizona Coyotes in November and acquired forwards Dylan Strome and Brendan Perlini for center Nick Schmaltz. It seemed like a minor move at the time.

The trade paid off as Strome helped boost winger Alex DeBrincat’s numbers while putting up great stats himself. Schmaltz suffered a knee injury in December and is out for the season.

I’m always willing to admit that I was wrong, and in this case, I was very wrong. I thought for sure that the firing of Quenneville and hiring of a young, homegrown coach was the sign of an impending rebuild. Now it’s clear no such rebuild will take place.

Couple the surprising success of the team with the historic season of winger Patrick Kane, and it’s easy to see why the team is surging right now. Kane is second in the NHL in points with 92 and continues to rack up points in seemingly every game.

It hasn’t all been perfect as the team’s defense has slipped a bit lately. They gave up seven goals in an 8-7 win over the lowly Ottawa Senators on Monday. Still, the fact that this team is in contention for a playoff spot is pretty incredible.

Colliton still has work to do to get this team playing more consistently, but he’s done a good job so far. It’s time to accept that Quenneville’s firing was the right decision at the right time.

The Blackhawks have a challenge in front of them to secure the final playoff spot in the west, but that spot is attainable. They’ll have a lot of competition, but this team has shown all year that they aren’t going down without a fight.