Chicago Blackhawks Joel Quenneville Loves Winning

With a win over the Wild on Tuesday night, Chicago Blackhawks’ head coach Joel Quenneville earned his 400th win with the team.

This season seems to be the year of milestones for the Chicago Blackhawks. Head coach Joel Quenneville got his 400th win with the organization on Tuesday night after a 5-3 win over the Minnesota Wild. The Blackhawks have not missed the playoffs since Q became coach. They’ve won three Stanley Cups in seven years.

Are those stats good? They sound pretty good to me.

Obviously when you have a core of Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Corey Crawford, and Marian Hossa, your team is going to be pretty good. I’d even go to say really good. But Q’s success goes even further than that. In all of his seasons as a head coach in the NHL, Quenneville’s teams have only missed the playoffs twice. His teams have also never been below .500. And ever since he joined the Blackhawks, only the 2010-2011 team finished below .600.

So, Q’s a great coach. But what makes him one of the best coaches in the NHL?

A little bit of everything.

Regular Season Success

For all of these playoff berths and Stanley Cups to happen, the first thing any team has to done is have a good enough regular season to make the playoffs. Since Q became coach of the Blackhawks, they have not missed the playoffs once. That’s all thanks to the organization’s success during the season.Ever since he came to Chicago back in the 2008-2009, his record with the Hawks is 400-199-79. His winning percentage (.648) ranks 2nd in NHL coaches who’ve been behind the bench for over 200 games. As mentioned before, only the 2010-2011 Hawks finished below a .600 winning percentage. To be more specific, they finished at .591, which is still way above where most teams finish by the end of the season.

Chicago has had less than 100 points only twice, and one of those seasons was the 2012-2013 lockout year, and they still finished with 77 points in only 48 games. There has never been a season when the Hawks, coached by Quenneville, has finished with 30 or more losses. They’ve always finished with more than 40 wins, not including the lockout year, where they still owned a 36-7-5 record. Talk about dominant.

And to make the playoffs, and win three Stanley Cups, you have to be dominant in the regular season. With a talented core, Quenneville has helped the Blackhawks do exactly that.