Blackhawks hire Jeff Blashill as next coach: Chicago hoping second time around is much different

The Chicago Blackhawks have hired Jeff Blashill as their next coach, the team announced on Thursday. This is Blashill’s first coaching job since 2022, when he was fired by the Detroit Red Wings.

Chicago is hoping that the second time around will be much different for Blashill, who replaced Mike Babcock in Detroit in 2015. Blashill made the playoffs just once, in his first season as the Red Wings’ run of greatness was winding down, and the team lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning in five games.

After that, Detroit began what has been a long and arduous rebuilding process, not much different from what Chicago has endured since its dynasty ended. With Blashill at the helm, that rebuild spun its wheels for six years.

The Red Wings never finished higher than fifth in their division, and Blashill’s second-best season behind the bench in Detroit was a 33-36-13 mark in 2016-17. Perhaps the biggest stain on Blashill’s resume was the 2019-20 season in which the Wings were historically bad.

That team finished 17-49-5 in the pandemic-shortened season. By points percentage, that is the 37th worst record in NHL history and the lowest mark since the Atlanta Thrashers’ inaugural season in 1999-00.

To make matters worse, the 2019-20 Red Wings’ minus-122 goal differential (in just 71 games) cracks the bottom 25 in NHL history.

Blashill left the Red Wings with an overall record of 204-261-71. That doesn’t exactly inspire much confidence that he’s the guy to bring the Blackhawks back to contention in this new era.

In fairness to Blashill, there are reasons to believe that the second time might be the charm. Prior to his time with the Red Wings, Blashill had an impeccable resume with the Grand Rapids Griffins at the AHL level. He was 134-71-23 with a Calder Cup win in Grand Rapids, which is how he got the Detroit job in the first place.

Beyond that, the roster during Blashill’s tenure just wasn’t very good. Stars like Henrik Zetterberg aged out, and the team missed on too many high draft picks like Dennis Cholowski, Michael Rasmussen, Joe Veleno and Filip Zadina.

The Blackhawks already have a bona fide young star in place with Connor Bedard, and others like Frank Nazar and Artyom Levshunov got their first real taste of NHL action last season.

Blashill has also spent the last few seasons working as an assistant under Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper, arguably the best in the game. Soaking up Cooper’s knowledge and perspective on the game can only be a good thing.

Chicago just has to hope that Blashill has learned from his past failures in Detroit because the franchise has been in the wilderness for almost a decade now. If Blashill doesn’t work out, it will only set the team back even further.