Blackhawks: Jeremy Colliton has to be a favorite for the Jack Adams Award

Jeremy Colliton did not look like the best coach to lead the Chicago Blackhawks after the team fired Joel Quenneville in November of 2018. A few years later, Colliton looks like a lock to be with the team for a while.

Colliton has, in a way, fixed the Blackhawks. He turned a struggling roster into one more capable of success, one that can win no matter who is on the ice. While Quenneville also was an amazing coach, Colliton has done a great job getting so many different rookies involved with the team.

Brandon Hagel, Philipp Kurashev, Matthew Highmore, Pius Suter, Nicolas Beaudin, and Ian Mitchell are getting big opportunities with this team. While the quality of players Stan Bowman has on the roster might be better now than in 2018, it also helps when Colliton uses them the right way.

Colliton has also done an excellent job coming into the season with no real starter. After Malcolm Subban struggled in the first matchup of the season, Colliton turned to Delia for games two and three. Neither goalie shined, and rather than just repeating the process between those two netminders, Colliton turned to Kevin Lankinen, and the team has not looked back since.

All the moves Jeremy Colliton has made have made him a better coach, one that can win now with the Blackhawks.

Colliton’s coaching record is only going to get better. His first season, he went 30-28-9, then 32-30-8, and now he is coaching the team to a 13-8-5 record. His teams have been competitive on both the man advantage and while shorthanded, and over the course of the past few seasons, the team has looked better.

It definitely helps to have a player like Patrick Kane continue to play top-level hockey the past few seasons but keeping Kane and other veterans going the past few seasons have been on Colliton.

Jeremy Colliton has done an excellent job infusing youth into the lineup. The average age on this team is below average at 27.2, and Colliton is helping to make the team better. Should Chicago push to the playoffs, Jeremy Colliton definitely should be considered for the Jack Adams award. While last night’s loss against the Tampa Bay Lightning was not nice to see, at least the roster can move forward knowing they just went 1-1-1 against Tampa Bay.