NEWSLETTER
The Chicago Blackhawks made a bold move on Thursday afternoon, firing head coach Luke Richardson and placing the interim tag on Anders Sorensen.
The dust is still settling, but the season isn’t going to wait for the Blackhawks to get their act together. There’s a game against a very good, albeit currently struggling, Winnipeg Jets team. And, in the aftermath of their general manager speaking with the media on Friday morning, the skaters were back on the ice with Sorensen beginning his time as their head coach.
After a spirited skate, a larger-than-usual collection of media entered the room to speak with players for the first time since the coaching change. As you might expect, there was some shock. There were some raw emotions from more than just Davidson. And there was an understanding from a veteran group that it’s now on them to be better. Because, at the end of the day, the players not doing their jobs is why Richardson no longer has his.
Here are the captain, Nick Foligno, and Connor Bedard speaking about the coaching change (videos courtesy CHGO):
#Blackhawks Captain Nick Foligno’s full comments on the firing of Luke Richardson pic.twitter.com/HqQcGTXluQ
— CHGO Blackhawks (@CHGO_Blackhawks) December 6, 2024
#Blackhawks forward Connor Bedard shares his thoughts on what needs to change in the team's approach going forward. pic.twitter.com/LgpIhBCp8U— CHGO Blackhawks (@CHGO_Blackhawks) December 6, 2024
I spoke with Jason Dickinson at length on Friday about the coaching change and what he sees as being what’s broken with the team right now. As always, Dickinson was thoughtful with his responses.
- On Richardson being the guy to lose his job:
“It’s a shitty situation for a good man. I have a lot of respect for Luke; he gave me a great opportunity here and I’m grateful for everything that he did for me. Unfortunately, we’ve got to get results and the first step in finding results is you look at the coach. And then when that doesn’t happen, then you look at the players. And then when that doesn’t happen, you’ve got to look elsewhere.”
- On every game something different seems to be a problem that turns into a loss:
“I think what happens is a sort of snowball effect. You get to a place where it feels like you can’t make those mistakes and get out of them. It’s not that that is who we are as a group, but I think for anybody, it’s a mindset. It’s a psychology that creeps in and very toxic and poisonous in the brain that you just can’t get away from it. And last game we ice it, they score on a set face-off play, and it’s not like we give up goals on face-off plays. That’s not something that’s a concern, but it’s something that happens as a result of so many other things not connecting, and it’s us not being confident in our games personally, and then together, it doesn’t come together cohesively to create a good 60 minutes because there’s moments where we’re going, we’ve got it, but we fall off. And it’s that mindset of not being able to get back to it, and we let that doubt creep in ourselves and then it creeps into the group and it just gets so overwhelming that it’s hard to get out of that mindset at times.”
- How do the veterans in the room fix that dangerously contagious mindset?
“It’s tremendously hard and there’s no great way of [fixing it]. I wish I had the recipe to say, this is how you get yourself out of it, but it’s different for each guy. It’s hard to just constantly tell yourself, ‘oh, I’m going to get there,’ because it’s not necessarily the truth. And you want to believe that in your head and you say all the right things, but sometimes it’s simplifying. Sometimes it’s, you know what, maybe I won’t get a point for five games straight, but I’m doing all these little things that are the core of my game that will make myself get to the point that I will score points. if I’m a point scorer. For myself, it’s always, if I don’t have my core, I’m useless in my opinion. I could score a couple goals in the game, but if I don’t have my core, if I don’t have my base, to me, I’m useless.
So that’s where I find my consistency is knowing that I’ve got my traits that I can rely on, and I think that’s where guys start to struggle mentally is when they lose their core, when they lose what they are, their foundation of who they are as a player. And that’s where it gets really hard to get back to feeling confident and rolling because you can be rolling, like we said a little bit earlier, you can be rolling, but then one little hiccup, if it shatters your foundation, what do you have to fall back on? So you’ve got that roll going, but you fall back on nothing. Then you’re going to fall back into that doubt and that’s going to creep in again and make it happen in a split second.”
- On if he feels systems changes could improve the outcomes of games:
“I don’t know that there are any bad suggestions with a losing record. What are you going to say about a system? What we were doing was an improvement. We were not giving up a ton. Our inner slot chances were down our rush chances against were down. So there’s a lot of things that were going better. But if we’re not getting wins, then maybe there’s something that could change. That’s a hard question to answer because when you’re a winning team, you’re going to sit there and say, no, we don’t need to change anything. But as a losing team, you can always look at it and say, ‘Hey, maybe there’s something to change.'”
