The Chicago Blackhawks appear to have their next head coach according to reports as they are targeting Luke Richardson
The offseason has already sparked coaching changes and extensions. Montreal extended Martin St. Louis, The Dallas Stars brought on Peter Deboer, and the Blackhawks have a man of their own.
The next bench boss of the Blackhawks will be Luke Richardson according to the Daily Face-offs Frank Seravalli.
Hearing Luke Richardson will be the next head coach of the Chicago #Blackhawks.
Sources say Richardson and the Hawks are putting the final touches on a contract.
Quite the resume for Richardson, who played 1400+ NHL games, 8 years as NHL assistant, 4 years as AHL head coach.
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) June 24, 2022
Richardson served as Assistant coach of the Montreal Canadiens since June, 2018. Before that he had stints as the assistant coach for the Senators and Islanders, in between the two he was the Head Coach of the AHL Binghampton Senators. In his first season as Head Coach of the AHL squad he was awarded Eastern Conference coach of the year and a contract extension through the next season. Following his contract expiring he moved on to the Islanders for one season before finding a more long term landing spot in Montreal.
During the 2021 playoffs, Richardson briefly took over behind the bench for the Canadiens after Dominque Ducharme tested positive for Covid. Richardson helped the Canadiens defeat the Vegas Golden Knights before relinquishing control back to Ducharme to face Tampa in the final. We all know how that went.
Richardson played in the NHL for 21 seasons as a defenseman. In over 1400 games he put up only 201 points, however he did put up 2055 penalty minutes in his career, so he at least got onto the score sheet most games.
Previously we covered the prospect of Barry Trotz getting behind the Blackhawks bench, but it seems he will either end up in Nashville or Winnipeg. Despite this it seems the Blackhawks have found their guy, only time will tell where he leads this team.
Could the Blackhawks acquire his Nephew?
Jacob Chychrun has been known to be on the market for a while now. The Coyotes are bad and will continue to be bad and will almost certainly be moving on from Chychrun soon, so why not come and play for his uncle?
Sure, it is certainly a stretch, but maybe that connection could be enough to put the wheels in motion. Some people probably wouldn’t want their relatives as their boss, but when you’re as good as Chychrun is it is hard to believe that would really be an issue.
Obviously this is all just speculation and a little bit of drawing lines between things that are hardly there, but it sure would be nice to see Chychrun in the windy city. Defense has been a huge problem for the Blackhawks as of late, maybe an acquisition like that could be a step in the right direction.
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