The Chicago Blackhawks cut ties with head coach Joel Quenneville on Tuesday morning after 11 seasons with the NHL franchise.
Quenneville won 3 Stanley Cups for the Blackhawks. He’s the second-winningest coach in the league’s history with 890 wins in three clubs and had stayed with the club since 2008. 33-year-old Jeremy Colliton was announced as the new coach, becoming the youngest head coach in NHL.
The Club’s owner released a statement to announce Quenneville’s dismissal and called the decision “difficult as it should.”
“As Chicago Blackhawks fans have seen over the last decade, this organization no longer shies away from making tough decisions or ones based on emotion,” the statement read. “Those days are long behind us. Of course, Joel’s was difficult, as it should have been.”
Coach Quenneville not only won the three league cups for Chicago, but he also led the Blackhawks to back-back playoffs for nine years. The Blackhawks only missed their first playoffs in a decade last year. The team has also been struggling this year, having lost five games.
Quenneville’s assistants Kevin Dineen and Ulf Samuelsson were also fired. 66-year-old, Barry Smith was however retained to help Colliton reorganize his team. The legendary coach becomes the second manager to face the ax in a week after the Los Angeles Kings fired Coach John Stevens this weekend, hiring Willie Desjardins instead.
