Joel Quenneville, The Greatest Coach In Blackhawks History, Has Been Fired By Lesser Men
Just an absolutely stunning Tuesday morning. Joel Quenneville, the man with three Stanley Cups, the man with 890(EIGHT HUNDRED AND NINETY) career wins has been fired by a guy who just learned what offsides was like 10 years ago and his errand boy, Stan Bowman. Joel Quenneville is not infallable. He is not free of blame. All coach’s have a shelf life(as Joel himself has said), but we never got to know what Joel’s true shelf life was because Stan Bowman put together a substandard roster. Last night on Redline Radio I described the Blackhawks Front Office and specifically the Hockey Ops Department as being trapped in a Game of Thrones style power struggle and it wasn’t clear who was ultimately going to end up on the Iron Throne of the Chicago Blackhawks. Well…now we know. Let’s break it by character.
Rocky Wirtz, Chairman and Owner Of The Chicago Blackhawks
The buck ultimately stops with Rocky, but he is VERY hands off when it comes to the Blackhawks. He wasn’t really involved with the organization at all while his old man was alive and driving the franchise into the ground for a generation + and since 2008 not much has changed. He hired John McDonough to run the business and Rocky shows up to sit in the corner at games, make speeches, and run the family’s real business which is alcohol distribution. It’s more or less a toy for him and that’s his perogative. I assume he was consulted about a move of this magnitude, but I HIGHLY doubt he’d ever step in or overrule a decision.
John McDonough, President and CEO Of The Blackhawks
John McDonough is widely praised as sports marketing guru. He worked with the Cubs before assuming the big job with the Blackhawks in 2007. Forbes Magazine called the Blackhawks the “Greatest Sports Business Turn-Around Ever”. You know where I found that article? Right on John McDonough’s official page on Blackhawks.NHL.com. McDonough has a keen sense for marketing and there is nothing John McDonough markets better than John McDonough, the brand. In the past 18 months many local reports have had sit downs with John McDonough to discuss what a genius John McDonough is. Yes, it’s been an incredible turn around for the Blackhawks in Chicago. What a genius idea by John McDonough to win three Stanley Cups and put home games on TV.
John McDonough is a genius when it comes to the John McDonough brand though and he played this perfectly from a self-preservation stand-point. Now, Stan has fired Joel. Stan is the bad guy and when John McDonough ultimately fires Stan Bowman next summer he will be lauded as a hero again. McDonough was able to fire the guy who built the Dynasty for the offense of golfing too much in the summer(Dale Tallon) and now he can fire the guy who dismantled the Dynasty and walk away with his hands clean.
The problem here is that John McDonough isn’t a hockey guy and there’s something rotten in the State of Denmark. He is at the head of the organization, but when it comes to hockey he is nothing more than a figure head. When you don’t have any convictions about how the product on the ice should work, then it’s easy to have poison poured in your ear.
The rumor that has always swirled around the Blackhawks offices is that John McDonough loves Joel Quenneville while simultaneously being EXTREMELY intimidated by Joel Quenneville. For lack of a better term John McDonough can be a bit of a jersey chaser. If it were solely up to Stan Bowman, Joel Quenneville likely would’ve been fired last year. McDonough’s Stevie Janowski complex with Joel probably saved him for a while. McDonough also has a large ego. That’s why he makes sure that he gets his positive column inches with all the major media outlets. McDonough being intimidated by Joel also is probably what did Quenneville in. McDonough can’t bully Joel or control Joel the way he can control Stan Bowman(or other young employees in the Blackhawks offices). So McDonough allowed Stan to do his dirty work while knowing that he can redeem himself by turning around and firing Stan Bowman. Marvelous work by John McDonough.
I’m guessing the last straw was the game in Calgary where an coaching error(not having a guy in the box serving Keith’s major penalty) forced the Blackhawks to be short-handed for an extra 1:47 in the first period. Stan and Scotty Bowman probably knew they could sewer Joel’s record over 21 years with 107 seconds and that John McDonough would fall for it. So here we hard. Joel Quenneville, the man who deserves a statue and a better ending than this is fired for an extra 1:47 of shorthanded time, but the guy who left the team short-handed since the summer of 2015 lives to see another day. Which brings us to…
Stan Bowman, Senior Vice President and General Manager
…I believe it is in the best interests of the Blackhawks organization. We need to maximize each and every opportunity with our playoff goals in mind and create continued growth and development throughout our roster at the same time.–Stan Bowman
What a sniveling little rat comment from Stan Bowman. We absolutely do need to maximize each and every opportunity with our playoff goals in mind. That’s probably why it wasn’t a good idea to trade away Saad because your beta bitch ass didn’t want to play hardball in negotiations with Saad’s dad. Probably shouldn’t have traded for and extended Ansinimov sight unseen. The entire game was getting younger, smaller, and faster, but Stan signed Anisimov who was never known for his skating. Oh and even though Anisimov is cooked, he’s signed through 2021. Imagine an alternate universe where Stan isn’t a beta and signs Saad for a more reasonable number which allows him to then keep Sharp, Oduya, and Stephen Johns. He turned Saad, Sharp, and Oduya into Anisimov, Trevor Daley, and Ryan Garbutt and only saved like $1m. Then he turned Daley into Rob Scuderi, and then Rob Scuderi into Erhoff. All of that was masked in 2016-17 by a career year from Patrick Kane and a rookie of the year campaign from Artemi Panarin. The Stan thought it was a good idea to dismantle that team even further and traded away Panarin for Saad and an AHL goalie and a top 4 IRON MAN defenseman for Connor Murphy. Stan and Joel’s relationship was probably #done the moment Hjalmarsson was traded. The stories of Joel storming out of a restaurant and into Stan’s office after that trade are legendary. Stan always seemed to want to force his guys on Joel. The David Rundblads, Jan Ruttas, etc of the world. I will do an entire blog about Stan’s performance at a later date, but it goes without saying that he WAY more to blame than Joel is for the demise of the Blackhawks. When Quenneville had a team built by Dale Tallon he won three Stanley Cups. Teams built by Stan…not so much.
There are also widely held rumors of fractures in Stan’s own department. Norm MacIver, who people have told me is the smartest guy in the organization, was largely iced out by Stan. MacIver had a job, but didn’t have Stan’s ear. The only people Stan seems to trust are people who were appointed by his dad’s coterie of advisors. His “small council” meetings included Pierre Gauthier, Ryan Stewart, and of course…Barry Smith. It is no surprise that Barry Smith was immediately made an assistant coach today. Based on his tweet, Dan Carcillo seems to think that Al MacIsaac is in the Stan Bowman camp, but I’m not sure how true that is. MacIssaac has been with the Blackhawks for 19 years now. He’s seen MANY guys in the organization rise up and move on to bigger jobs and other organizations. I find that a little bit odd. There’s been power struggles and dysfunction inside of the Blackhawks for years now and it’s a travesty that it ends now this way. With a team that is floundering, and two truly incompotent men in charge. At the end of the day this doesn’t solve or fix anything. I’ve talked to a few guys down in Rockford. They all say that Jeremy Colliton is a beauty. A great young coach. But…he’s young. Like 33 years-old young. How is he supposed to walk into the locker room and command the respect of Toews, Keith, Kane, Seabrook, and Crawford. Colliton might be the next greatest coach in the game, but this isn’t a good fit. It’s one last gaffe from a man on his last legs. #FireStan
On a personal note…I am just sad. Truly the end of an era. I loved Joel Quenneville. Nobody is perfect, but he delivered so many great moments here with this group. He was a fun coach to watch, to blog, and HIS Blackhawks playing HIS style of up-tempo possession hockey really did pave the way for this current NHL. Everyone plays that way now. Joel was THE man of his time and also ahead of his time. He will get a job as soon as he wants and will probably be back in the playoffs before Stan Bowman.
PS: John and Stan are both classless for the timing of this whole thing. I am sure details will come out in the coming days and it’s not my business to air it out here, but they’re cold-hearted and callous people. Nobody ever gets away with anything and their day is coming too.