Was Quenneville really the problem in Chicago?

[GaryU]

Q's message after 10 yrs, got old...Bowman overpaid EVERYBODY (4th line Kruger $3m+, Bickell going from 500,000 to 4 yr-$16m after 1 good playoff series, Seabrook getting this awful contract this late in his career, Toews/Kane got $10.5m, when $10m woulda been enough)...Just examples.

 

[GaryU]

Yep. Quennville wasn't "the" problem, and he might not have even been "a" problem. But the decision to fire him was still the right move at the time. Sometimes, regardless of what is actually wrong, change can help. And changing the coach was easy to do.

Dump money on Panarin in the offseason, and trade for a reliable defender. Problem solved.

Not likely a 2 player issue.

 

[qqaz]

Not likely a 2 player issue.

It's true. I was being a bit facetious.

 

[member 147413]

Coaches don't get fired because they forget how to coach, they get fired to facilitate change and use it as a wakeup call. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.

Good post for once

 

[PromisedLand]

*blocks your path*

its amazing that both recent multiple cup winners are lottery teams

 

[Rick C137]

He was for sure a problem but he wasn’t the problem. Despite what the front office says to sell tickets, all the logical fans knew this was a retool year and weren’t expecting the playoffs.

 

[Luigi Lemieux]

Yes, and Oilers have made a turnaround with Hitchcock. LA, Chicago and STL? Not so much.

I said rarely brings out good results, not that it never does. I don't have any data on NHL but I've heard about a study made about coach changes in soccer, and in the wast majority of cases the coaching change doesn't bring out better results in the overall scheme of things. I have the same hunch from our Finnish hockey league.

Sometimes the coach has lost the trust of the players, and in those cases the change is necessary and might help. However the problems with Chicago and LA lay much deeper than just that I think.

In addition to the Pens examples, it also happened with LA in 2012 (fired Terry Murray and won cup with Sutter) and NJ in 2000 (fired Ftorek and won cup with Robinson). It really depends on the roster itself. A good but underperforming roster can have huge benefits from a coaching change. A bad roster is a bad roster no matter who is coaching.

 

[These Are The Days]

Bowman's a fool for thinking it was a good idea to pay 4 guys bound to drop off a collective $23.4 million until they're 40 along with Hossa's near $6 million contact. Unfortunately this exact situation will now be pointed out to everyone who wants a lifetime deal because it had to happen to someone first.

Their decline had nothing to do with Q but rather that the core got older, they're running out of cap and the prospects need time to develop and come up accordingly.

We all knew this day was coming. Stan sold his soul for Stanley

 

[CokenoPepsi]

Toews is having a good year, what are you talking about?

Not really.

I mean he is having a slightly better year than his previous few seasons but that isn't saying much.

Slight uptake in his offense but his defense has taken a fall now too.

 

[SUBdrewgANS]

Everyone the problem except Kunitz pretty much.

Everyone else be it large (Toews,Seabrook,Bowman) or small (Keith,Crawford) deserve some blame

Fixed that for you ;-)

 

[JaegerDice]

He wasn't THE problem, but he was certainly, without question A problem.

The new guy may not be the solution. But Q wasn't the solution going forward either.

10 years is a hell of a long time to coach, with tons of turnover on the roster, and tons of changes in the NHL as a whole. I had no problem letting Q go, though I probably would have waited till the end of this year to do it, cause making the playoffs was a fantasy either way.

 

[Dont Toews Me Bro]

I honestly wish Quenneville was coaching in Winnipeg.
Letting him go was a mistake.

The Hawks should have moved a big player instead.

No they should have moved the GM instead.

 

[member 298589]

5 additional years of Seabrook at $6.8M, when all the guy can still do is board other players. That is your #1 problem followed by goaltending.

 

[tony d]

No, the problem with Chicago is their time is up. Happens with all teams. Wonder when the Blackhawks will be good again.

 

[Kaners Bald Spot]

Quenneville was, absolutely a huge part of the problem. As others had said, he isn't the only problem, but he was a major problem.
I think Bowman was a better GM than Q was a coach over the last few years.
Too many people blame Bowman for the downfall, where I blame Q. Bowman tried to infuse youth into the team while Q would sabotage those players constantly, while playing crappy vets such as Handzus, Slowszival and Kunitz. 4 or 5 of their 9 wins were in 3-3 OT, so they could easily only have 4 wins on the year.
With Bowman's roster management, I could understand the logic behind his moves. Quenneville's coaching decisions defied all logic.
He was the wrong coach for where the team is right now. They need to develop players, and Q is a win now coach.
I thank Q for the 3 cups, and he is a Chicago Sports Legend. We don't need to turn him into Mike Ditka.

 

[Bleedred]

I don't think he was the problem, but he probably needed to go because it's been 10 years and this team needs to probably rebuild, but they have a couple very bad contracts with Toews (still a good player, just on a bad contract) Seabrook (BAD player on a BAD contract) and Keith, who I'm not sure if he's bad yet, but he likely will be bad or at least not anywhere near worth his contract the next few years, which has 4 more years remaining after this one and he turns 36 this offseason. Saad hasn't been worth his contract either the last 2 years and has 2 more years remaining after this one.

A lot of their depth guys are players that I've really never heard of before, but DeBrincat looks like a pretty good player. They really hit a home run with that one. I was surprised when he didn't go in the 1st round.

 

[Bleedred]

No, the problem with Chicago is their time is up. Happens with all teams. Wonder when the Blackhawks will be good again.

They probably should rebuild. There's a pretty good chance that Kane will still be a very effective player by the time it's finished. Toews is still good, just not as his contract. If this plateau continues for a few more years and doesn't get even worse in the next 5 years. It seems like he's plateaued around a 60-ish point per 82 game guy over the last 4 years, so I think there's a reasonable chance that he's still a 40 point guy in 5 years from now.

They got a couple good younger guys on defense and DeBrincat looks really good. Crawford is probably done after next year, or at least done in Chicago, as his deal is up. They better hope there's an amnesty buyout in the next CBA, which will wipe out the remainder of the really ugly Seabrook contract. If they get two of them, maybe they use the other on Toews or Keith, but it's hard to imagine they'd part ways with those guys like that, unless they really fall off in the next couple years.

 

[XX]

"win now" coaches are never good for young rebuilding teams. They can extract maximum performance from a group over a short span but eventually their "win now" approach will catch up to them in a cap world. You need young players to step in and fill the gaps on that cheap ELC so you don't end up paying mediocre depth players too much.

 

[goldenbladz1]

Not really.

I mean he is having a slightly better year than his previous few seasons but that isn't saying much.

Slight uptake in his offense but his defense has taken a fall now too.

Then you aren't actually watching the games. Toews is having a great season. Kane has more points but hasn't played hard game in and out like Toews has.

 

[goldenbladz1]

Q's message after 10 yrs, got old...Bowman overpaid EVERYBODY (4th line Kruger $3m+, Bickell going from 500,000 to 4 yr-$16m after 1 good playoff series, Seabrook getting this awful contract this late in his career, Toews/Kane got $10.5m, when $10m woulda been enough)...Just examples.

I agree with Q's message getting old and the Seabrook resigning was an absolute trainwreck. T&K deserved what they got. Kruger was rewarded because he had done a favour to the team by taking a lower value contract previously for CAP reasons and was compensated for being a team guy. Bickell is hard to judge as no one could have predicted he would be diagnosed with MS which ruined his career.

 

[Toews2Bickell]

Then you aren't actually watching the games. Toews is having a great season. Kane has more points but hasn't played hard game in and out like Toews has.

You could probably say that about 99% of the people replying in this thread that don’t frequent the Hawks board....

 

[koyvoo]

Q was not even close to the biggest problem in Chicago but it was still likely time for him to go

 

[FeatherHead]

The problem is Chicago didnwhat you have to donwhen you win 3 Cups. Pay people. Every Cup they’ve won, they subsequently had to hemorrhage talent. Despite having to do that after each of the first two, they came back to win another. Every team has a core they lock up, and in their prime, no one questions it. However teams are way too generous with term these days, and as you can see from the Kings and Hawks situations, there’s a price to pay for success.

It’s easy for all the armchair GM’s to say they’ve overpaid their top talent. But at the time these guys’ contracts were signed, there wasn’t a single other team in the league that wouldn’t have done the same with them.

With the cap, you just can’t afford the abundance of talent the Hawks have had on their roster year in and year out.

The Maple Leafs and Jets will discover this too, sooner or later.

All you can do is keep sticking the cupboard with promising prospects, and hope they pan out so you can get an infusion of cheap talent that can contribute substantially for a few years before they too blossom and need to be given a raise.

The days of dynasties are over. We had a great run after generations of futility. I’m grateful for that. We’ve got some decent cap space heading into next year. If we can dump one of our big contracts, garner some picks and prospects, grab a good young player with our own pick, and nab a nice UFA this summer...we’ll be headed back in the right direction like we were after our past Cup dismantlings.

 

[Mike Lowry]

The problem was Scott Bowman, who had the ear of Rocky Wirtz, and got the owner to fire the previous GM and hire his son, because the previous GM understood that paying a 2nd line one dimensional winger $10.5mil per is a recipe for a disaster.

So take your pick in Chicago:
Scott Bowman
Rocky Wirtz
Stan Bowman
Pat Kane

 

[haveandare]

The mistakes were made a long time ago by committing that much money in the Toews and Seabrook contracts while letting go of guys like Panarin who were cost controlled for a while.

Yup, the GM is very obviously the problem. He did a really incredible job for a while but he's not very good anymore, he's made a lot of very bad decisions that put the team where it is now.

Probably banking on falling his way into another lottery win. Might work sadly.