Coaching Hires, Draft Thoughts, Tampa’s Impact on Chicago’s Future, and Other Blackhawks Bullets

The Stanley Cup Final begins tonight! Tampa travels to Denver to begin another title defense and the Avs look to prove they’re the next team to beat. This should be an exciting Stanley Cup Final with a lot of incredible talent on the ice. We can’t wait for the games to begin!

  • We now have one head coaching vacancy filled and another reportedly close to being done. Tuesday night the Vegas Golden Knights announced they have hired Bruce (not Butch and definitely not David) Cassidy as their head coach. He was let go by Boston and didn’t sit on the market very long.
  • It also appears the Philadelphia Flyers have decided on their next coach: John Tortorella. Pierre LeBrun reported on Wednesday morning that Torts is headed to Philly tomorrow to get the contract details worked out. ESPN’s John Buccigross had it last week.
  • Which once again begs the question: should the Blackhawks hire an experienced coach, a new voice, or just ride with Derek King. You can vote in our Twitter poll today!
  • But… do the Blackhawks hire a new head coach before or after the fire sale that is supposedly coming? It’s a delicate balance between those two realities and prepping for a draft and getting ready for free agency. We discussed on the site this morning.
  • An interesting draft-related note with the Tampa Bay Lightning playing this evening. The Blackhawks will use the pick originally owned by the Bolts in three of four NHL drafts. The 32nd overall pick in 2021 (originally Tampa’s), was acquired in the Seth Jones trade from Columbus and became Nolan Allan. The Brandon Hagel trade gave Chicago the rights to Tampa’s first-round pick in 2023 and 2024 (safely assuming Tampa isn’t in the top ten overall selections).
  • Yesterday we started profiling players who might be on the Blackhawks’ radar at the 2022 NHL Draft. How do we feel about college forward Jack Hughes? No, not the one who already has two brothers in the NHL, the other one.
  • On Tuesday afternoon the New York Rangers announced Jessica Campbell will coach at their development camp later this summer. She made history earlier this year as an assistant coach for Germany at the 2022 IIHF Men’s World Championship; she is the first woman to to be part of a coaching staff for a team participating in the World Championship.
  • Campbell has Chicago ties. This past season she worked with the Tri City Storm, USHL development program actively leading the Windy City Storm Girl’s Hockey program in Chicago. We love seeing this move by the Rangers — the Blackhawks could do similarly with Kendall Coyne Schofield — and hope to see more women in leadership roles soon.
  • Since Blackhawks fans are desperately hoping for prospects to be excited about, the Cubs are bringing their top arm back up for a start on Wednesday.
  • written by

    Tab Bamford has been writing about the Chicago Blackhawks for almost two decades. He joined Bleacher Nation as the lead Blackhawks writer in May 2022. Tab is a member of the Professional Hockey Writers Association and is the author of two books about the Blackhawks: "100 Things Blackhawks Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die" (Triumph Books) and "Chicago Blackhawks: An Illustrated Timeline" (Reedy Press, 2021). Find him on Twitter/X/Instagram/Threads at @The1Tab

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