What has Jeff Blashill done to improve the Blackhawks this season?
The Chicago Blackhawks have been one of the big surprises of this NHL season as we reach the quarter pole.
After a dreadful 25-46-11 campaign last year that saw Chicago finish 31st in the NHL with just 61 points, the Blackhawks are 10-6-4 so far this season and are tied for third place in the Central Division.
New head coach Jeff Blashill came over from a stint as an assistant with the Tampa Bay Lightning, and the former Detroit Red Wings coach seems to have picked up a lot during his time under Jon Cooper.
On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by color commentator and former NHL goalie Darren Pang to discuss the Blackhawks’ impressive start to the year and how Blashill has helped shape it.
Tyler Yaremchuk: I wanted to ask you about Jeff Blashill. There are plenty of examples throughout the history of the league of coaches who find way more success in their second stint as a bench boss than their first. And listen, Detroit, it was a long tenure but it didn’t go necessarily well. He goes and studies under Jon Cooper on that Bolts bench for a couple of years, and so far it’s looking like a great marriage between him and the Chicago Blackhawks. What makes him the right coach for this group?
Darren Pang: I agree with what you said about [Blashill]… Even though they (Detroit) were a team floundering because they didn’t have many assets… he still did a great job with that organization. So when he goes off to Tampa Bay, now he gets to be with Jon Cooper. Now he gets a little bit of a different view on how Jon Cooper handles the bench, how he handles the locker room, how he handles his assistants… For Jeff Blashill, he’s the perfect guy for this team because he’s a teacher. He talks with authority. He’s accountable, and what he’s done with this team is show them winning hockey clips and losing hockey clips. That’s basically what he does.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…