October 17, 2008 Savard will always be a Hawk TFP Columnist Josh Mora reacts to the
Blackhawks' firing of head coach Denis Savard.
[CHICAGO, IL] -- There were two
reactions to the Blackhawks' announcement that they had fired Denis
Savard.
In Chicago, the reaction was complete
shock, especially with the firing coming so early in the season and on
the heels of a victory.
In hockey circles outside Chicago,
not so much.
In Chicago, Savard has defined hockey for the better part of three
decades. He has been a Blackhawk, with only brief interruption, for
almost 30 years as a Hall-of-Fame player, an assistant coach and a
head coach. In a city which has only recently recognized hockey again,
Savard has remained a Chicago icon -- not as a hockey player, but as a
major celebrity on a par with Michael Jordan, Walter Payton and Ryne
Sandberg.
In this recent run as head coach, his
enthusiasm was a big selling point for his players and for the fans of
his team. Denis Savard is as classy, as genuine, and as much of a
gentleman as any person you will ever find in sports.
No one outside Chicago disagrees with that assessment, perhaps with
the exception of the few holdout old-school Minnesota North Star fans.
The questions outside Chicago were simply about his ability to coach.
In talking with several national hockey sources on Thursday, they
echoed the things I'd been hearing on the ground in Chicago for
several weeks. That while people admire his passion and nature, and
that while they admire Savard's ability to take the Blackhawks from
some point off the map and get them to point A, they doubted if he had
the ability to create systems and convey hockey knowledge to then get
the team to Point B. I talked to a few of Savard's former players.
Each one said they loved him as a person, but thought that he could be
inconsistent as a coach -- that his mood at practices could change
from day to day, and that he too often switched up line combinations
and discarded matchups early in games.
In short, there were people both inside and outside the Blackhawks who
felt that going back to last year the Hawks were getting consistently
outcoached, even as they began to win games.
I think of an incident in Savard's
first season, when they started out 9-3-2 under Savard, but Blue
Jackets' head coach Ken Hitchcock warned that the Blackhawks were
"playing a very dangerous game". The Hawks then compared Savard and
his experience to the other head coaches in the NHL's Central
Division. All of them have at least 8 years of experience as an NHL
head coach, and half of whom have won the Stanley Cup. In a year when
the Hawks more or less promised their fans they would make the
post-season -- a condition which Team President John McDonough
famously compared to the clock being at "five minutes to midnight"
when he ran the Chicago Cubs -- they felt this was a disadvantage they
could no longer abide.
But there are really two pieces to the Blackhawks stunning move, just
four games into this very important season. The first, is the removal
of Savard as coach. The second, is the installation of Joel
Quenneville to replace him. And from a hockey standpoint, it's hard to
argue against Quenneville's resume. His teams have made the playoffs
in nine of his ten seasons. He is more than 150 games over 500 in his
career. He is the winningest coach in St. Louis Blues history. And his
best coaching job may have come last year, when he led an
injury-riddled, talent-short Colorado club to the playoffs. Hawks GM
Dale Tallon even voted for Quenneville as Coach of the Year. He can
and will hold his own with Mike Babcock, Barry Trotz, Ken Hitchcock
and Andy Murray.
And so now, what comes next? What comes next for the Hawks as a team?
It's an interesting question because so many players are in their
first or second year, and because even the veterans on the team have
been through very few coaching changes.
Brian Campbell, for example, has been
in the NHL for nine seasons, and never previously lost his coach in
mid-season.
Will the youngsters whom Savard
admired, cultivated and championed -- yes, Pat Kane and Jonathan Toews,
but also Patrick Sharp, Dustin Byfuglien and Duncan Keith -- continue
to improve?
Will they thrive under an
accomplished coach, or will they struggle under the yoke of a
different system?
If Quenneville, despite his
experience, doesn't lead this team to the playoffs, what will be the
fallout from a fan base that expects the post-season and which didn't
want to see the head coach go?
What comes next for the Blackhawks as a franchise? Is this firing the
sign of greater strife, perhaps a powerplay within the organization?
The team has many voices -- GM Dale Tallon, Assistant GM Rick Dudley,
Director of Hockey Ops Stan Bowman, and Scotty Bowman as Senior
Advisor.
Sources previously indicated there
was a great deal of strife and difference of opinion among them, but
about this firing I was told that everyone was on the same page. So
was that infighting about this move, in particular? Did one of the
Players (capital P) have to have his arm twisted? Is there another
move that follows, and if so, wouldn't it seem that Tallon is next in
line?
And of course, what comes next for Savard? The Blackhawks said all the
right things Thursday. They said Savard will always be a Blackhawk.
They said they will take care of him, though they didn't say how.
Could he really be welcome in the front office? Would he be willing to
be a good will ambassador like Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull, considering
the team didn't give him much good will in letting him go?
I'm not sure these questions can be
answered until they play out for a while. But I can guarantee this,
Denis Savard will land on his feet, and wherever he lands, he will
treat those around him with respect and with class.
Josh
Mora,
a Columnist with TheFourthPeriod.com, is an Anchor and
Blackhawks Reporter with Comcast Sportsnet Chicago.
