Chicago Blackhawks

Positional Evaluations: Coaches & GM
May 8, 2017, 10:57 AM ET [121 Comments]
John Jaeckel
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Coaching staff
GRADE B-


Wait, WHAT?!

This one is about perspective. See: grade below for GM.

I happen to fall in the camp of those who tend to put faith in the Hall of Fame coach over the GM who’s had the luxury of learning on the job.

So let’s look at the coaching staff and the job they did in 2017-18. But wait, that means at least a sidewise glance at the GM. Because any evaluation of the coaching staff has to take into account roster turnover and the number of rookies they were forced to work with.

And in that regard, that context, the coaching staff did an incredible job compiling the best record in the Western Conference—even if all of the team's flaws were exposed in a nasty, brutish and short postseason.

Mike Kitchen—and did you really expect it to be anyone else—took the fall for the coaching staff. Listen, I don’t know Mike Kitchen. I’ve heard he’s a nice enough guy, and whether he’s Joel Quenneville’s “boy” or not, the fact is, he had chemistry with Q that resulted in 2 Stanley Cups and 3 conference finals over seasons.

It wasn’t Kitchen’s fault that Michal Frolik and Antoine Vermette left Chicago, or that Marcus Kruger’s wrist injuries have reduced his abilities the last two seasons. But he took the blame for the 24th ranked penalty kill, and so be it.

Or do you hold “Faceoff Specialist” Yannic Perreault to blame for a three year team decline at the dot—or look at what he’s had to work with—a lesser Kruger, Artem Anisimov (who’s always been notoriously weak in the dot), and two rookies?

Unfortunately, Hawk fans are eternally hopeful creatures, so there’s an enduring willingness to believe the next name out of the hopper is always potentially as good as the proven guy he’s replacing. Just look at the narrative that’s emerged around Tanner Kero as the “replacement for Marcus Kruger.” Ehhhh, maybe.

But Kruger, currently centering the second line for Team Sweden in the IIHF Worlds, also played an integral role on two Stanley Cup teams, doing a job that is not easy at all to do.

Let’s face it, Kero stands out right now mostly because he’s not Andrew Desjardins or Dennis Rasmussen. Will Kero continue to improve and become a regular contributor in some role on a Cup contending Hawk team next year? Mmmm, it’s possible. But far from assured.

Just my opinion, and evaluating a coaching staff is highly subjective. If you go by wins and losses alone, they get an A+ for the regular season and an F for the playoffs. But again, that ignores context.

Like Kero, it is hard to say what the names Nick Schmaltz, Gustav Forsling, Michal Kempny, Vince Hinostroza, Ryan Hartman and Tyler Motte will mean in a few years.

The relative progress or regression each player made this year ladders back to their own initiative and hard work—and the efforts of the coaching staff.

But one thing is certain, for the first time in several seasons, the Hawks went through a significant infusion of young players—with largely mixed results as a team.

You can dismiss this as my “making things up”—because there are those out there who I’ve never met, but are apparently in the know about who and what I don’t know, which seems to be based on who and what they don't know.

But what I heard was that the team—the coaches and the veteran players—made the best of a hand they were dealt, put a positive public face on it—but at times were none too comfortable with the “youth movement” overall.

In fairness, and not surprisingly, they all ran happily to the bank with their big contracts, though.

And many have pointed to last year’s Penguin team as an example of a veteran team that absorbed and assimilated rookies on the way to a Cup. But as I pointed out last summer, all of those rookies were 23-24 years old with some substantial AHL experience. That was not the case with really any of the Hawk rookies, with the lone exception of Hartman, who, lo and behold, was arguably the Hawks’ most consistent and productive of the lot.

For what it’s worth, I also heard that Kevin Dineen, alternatively, kept his job because of a very frank and comprehensive assessment of team flaws during a season-emd interview.

Joel Quenneville, as we all know, is not perfect. He can be crusty and set in his ways, and will occasionally drive a player out of town who has had more success elsewhere. But he’s a lot closer to perfect than 27-28 other NHL coaches, and he has the skins on the wall to prove it.

Between he and Dineen, the Hawks have 2/3 of a very robust and capable coaching staff, and it’s up to he and Bowman to round that out with a better coach than Kitchen. Easier said, however, than done.


GM
GRADE C-


I have a feeling this blog and this particular grade is going to engender some “pushback.”

But the facts speak for themselves.

I’ve gone on record that Bowman, in all fairness with the complicity of the entire front office, has been a little (or way) too fast and loose with big money contracts, dollars and term, coupled with no-movement clauses. Which is what’s gotten the Hawks in the bind they find themselves in this summer

That’s the root of the problem. But as I’ve said here since 2009, all GMs make mistakes, great GMs don’t let them linger—and they fix them.

This is not an evaluation of Bowman’s 7 years as GM. But rather, how he played the hand he and the rest of the front office dealt themselves over the last year.

And again, this gets into what people are willing to believe. Fine. Engage your cerebral cortex over your heart, and see where it leads you.

Bowman’s “big” moves over the last year were the trades of Andrew Shaw, Bryan Bickell and Teuvo Teravainen (jury’s out on that as the return was draft picks), the free agent signing of Brian Campbell and the deadline trade for Johnny Oduya.

Bowman really had little choice with Shaw—again, because of the salary cap. A few eyebrows were raised when Teravainen became the “sweetener” that allowed the Hawks to get out from under the last $4 million of Bickell’s deal. I’m going to give Bowman a higher mark there, because he was betting Schmaltz would be a better (through stylistically similar) player than Teravainen, and early returns suggest he was right.

So meh, again, you have to give Bowman credit for deals like these, or the trade of Brandon Saad to Columbus that netted Artem Anisimov, or the recent shipping out of Scott Darling for a third round pick. When his back is to the wall, he has generally gotten some good value (the last couple of years anyway, as the sour taste of the Nick Leddy and Patrick Sharp trades still lingers).

And I will give Bowman credit also for at least targeting the right players. I was the first to report the Hawks’ interest in Jonathan Drouin last Spring. The Hawks obviously never consummated that deal so my detractors said I was “just making stuff up again.” Ha, so be it.

And although no team ended up acquiring Drouin then, he certainly was shopped at that time.

As I heard it, Steve Yzerman’s asking price of the Hawks started with Teravainen and Erik Gustafsson. In hindsight, and without knowing what else was asked, it’s hard to see how that would not have been a good trade for the Hawks. Drouin’s game stepped up this past year toward the promise he was drafted with—and all fans need to do is go back and look at the Tivo of him making the Hawks’ look absolutely stupid this past season in Amalie.

I was also told they targeted Mikkel Boedker last Spring. And Matt Duchene this past Spring. Those are the right players to be going after for a Hawk team that has been hobbled upfront (and on particular on the left side) since the departure of Saad.

The Hawks’ desperately need outside speed and skill (in the same winger) to be really successful in their transition game. So I give Bowman tons of credit there for his scouting and thought process and needs assessment—and players like those are hard to acquire.

I was told the Hawks were closer to a deal with Colorado for Duchene than many of the “legit” writers believed or reported. Again, believe what you will, but Sakic’s asking price allegedly began with Ryan Hartman. True? Hard to say for sure. Would Hartman++ have been worth Duchene? It now seems it might have been.

In all honesty, I do hear names from qualified sources. I also know they are mostly accurate. But trade discussions are highly fluid, and no one outside Bowman and a few people in the Hawk organization (and those of teams he talks to) really knows with 100% accuracy what the totality of the asking prices of these players are, or eventually become.

Regardless, when you step back and look at the 2016-17 Hawks, Bowman played his hand conservatively.

The Campbell signing was hailed as a huge steal—but in reality, the season showed that Campbell’s abilities have deteriorated somewhat, and he, himself, has adopted a much more conservative playing style. He wasn’t the problem this year, but he also didn’t bring a lot more than some depth steadiness.

There were many names out there that I was told the Hawks were pursuing at the trade deadline. In addition to Duchene, a couple of other targets I heard about were Tomas Tatar and Gustav Nyquist. Even Patrick Eaves. All those names made some to a lot of sense for the Hawks.

But when the Hawks got the wrong Slovakian forward named Tomas from Detroit, in the person of Tomas Jurco, what was fed to the press was “we were after him for 6 weeks.”

Oooooh, hey, wow. Look at that shrewd move.

Well, based on what we saw of Jurco over 30-some games, I think it’s fair to say that whoever pursued him for 6 weeks should be seriously on the hot seat. And deserves an “F” grade. Unless, Jurco magically evolves this offseason into something more than what we saw in Chicago, and Red Wings fans saw before that.

But, see, I think that was just spin. Which Bowman is good at—because I was told and believed then and still believe, he was really after Tatar for 6 weeks—the asking price was just too rich for Bowman’s blood. So be it.

So Bowman defaulted to Johnny Oduya, which looked great on the surface. The Hawks were, at that time, rolling a bit on the ice, their younger forwards were coming along. Johnny O would be plugged in right where he was—and it was all good.

Didn’t work out that way.

Again, I don’t mark Bowman down for making deadline deals—in fact, I applaud him for it. It’s what the GM of a team like the Hawks really needs to do every year. I just think, in this case, he played it too conservatively and it still came up snake eyes.

And that’s where the lesser grade for Bowman comes from. He wasn’t aggressive enough, and it seems fair to say he believed too much in his own propaganda about his prospects.

So looking forward, the Hawks have accumulated 9 picks over 7 rounds in the 2017 draft that they will host. Some are already theorizing that they will/should trade up, while others think they should hold on to their picks and “stock up.”

Again, fans seem to forget how low the odds are, however, that NHL draft picks, especially as you get past the top 10-15 players, ever pan out into impact players, or even ever play in the league.

As much as Bowman bangs the prospect drum, the reality of his situation is the team he has helped build, and the salary structure and contracts he is even more responsible for—are designed for near term performance—not a 3-4 year “what if,” scatter gun gamble on draft picks.

It is crucial (likely to Bowman’s job security) that the Blackhawks significantly improve on the ice in actual NHL games next year—especially those with the word “playoff” in front of them.

What the 2017-18 Hawks need is a speed winger (preferably left wing) with top 6 skill, a secondary faceoff option, and arguably an injection of size, speed and snarl on the lower lines. And all of that at least somewhat proven at the NHL level.

Oh, and a backup goalie with pro experience.

This is a taller order (no pun intended) than “let’s see what Tanner Kero has next year.” Or, all the hype and hope being pinned on a 5’7” OHL scoring phenom. Or “don’t mortgage the future.”

Hey, if there’s a kid in the top 15 of the draft who realistically can come into the NHL next year and fill one of the first two roles, then by all means, you trade up for him—if you can (the Hawks’ extra picks are in rounds 5 and 6, and those aren’t getting you into the top 10-15).

Otherwise, Bowman might want to look real hard at turning some of those prized picks (and prospects) into some NHL-ready help. And if Bowman’s as smart as I believe he is, quite frankly, Hawk fans may want to prepare for more trades and NHL/AHL level moves than draft pick and prospect hype next month.

If Bowman holds on to all 9 picks, and makes no significant moves, guess what Hawk fans? The “rebuild” has quietly begun, and we’ll all have more time on our hands in the late Spring, for a few years at least.

We will revisit that a year from now.

I will be looking next at the draft, impending free agency, expansion etc.


All for now,