Blashill & Warsofsky are key pieces to Blackhawks & Sharks rebuilds

The Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks have never really had much of a rivalry since the latter joined the National Hockey League in 1991. There have been some chances for Blackhawks fans to get their ire up. The Sharks took fan favorite Doug Wilson in the 1991 Expansion Draft and named the Hall of Fame defenseman their first captain. Of course, there was the 2010 Western Conference Final that the Blackhawks swept with four straight wins. Even the following offseason, when Wilson, the Sharks general manager at the time, signed Niklas Hjalmarsson and Antti Niemi to offer sheets and forced the Blackhawks to choose one or the other, the hatred never materialized.

I wouldn’t say there is hatred now, but fans of both teams have been paying attention to what the other team is up to. They both completely tore down their organization after years of success and put the rebuild in the hands of a first-time general manager. They have both recently had number one overall picks and have been picking at the top of the draft the last few years. And they both started to see the light at the end of their respective rebuild tunnels. These two teams could become Western Conference powerhouses, making the rivalry even more heated.

Bench Bosses Cut from the Same Cloth

Another way these two franchises are alike lies behind their respective benches. Both teams have a no-nonsense head coach who prides themselves on culture building and accountability. Jeff Blashill is in his second go-round as an NHL coach, while this is Ryan Warsofsky’s first venture as a bench boss at this level.

Both coaches have taken similar paths to get to where they are. While Blashill started in the USHL, Warsofsky began his journey in the ECHL. Both won Calder Cups in the American Hockey League before landing their first NHL jobs. Warsofsky is in a nearly identical situation to the one Blashill was in when he was named head coach of the Detroit Red Wings. The biggest difference is that the Sharks have had far better draft lottery luck than the Red Wings ever had.

I covered Warsofsky when he became the head coach of the Chicago Wolves. This came after he served as an assistant to Mike Vellucci with the Charlotte Checkers. I saw a lot of the same qualities during the Calder Cup championship seasons of 2021-22 that I see in Blashill. Both talk a lot about wanting their players to play the right way and not cheat the game. They want their teams to be hard to play against.

We’ve heard Blashill talk a lot about young players learning how to succeed on nights they don’t have their “A games.” I asked Warsofsky about this philosophy, and, right on cue, he agreed with that philosophy.

“Especially in the long grind of a season, you’re not going to feel great for all 82,” he said. “So, you’re going to have to learn how to make your B and C game impactful. That’s something we’ve talked about with our young players about. When you don’t feel your best, if you’re sick, if you’re a little dinged up, or if you don’t have your hands or legs that night, how can you help our hockey team? That’s something we’ve stressed with our young guys.”

Blackhawks, Sharks on Same Trajectory

Blashill is no stranger to dealing with young teams. He was at the helm for the hardest years of the Red Wings' long rebuild and never had as much success as Warsofsky is having now with the Sharks. Then again, he never had a Macklin Celebrini in Motown either. He admitted this morning that he is impressed with the job the first-time head coach has done in getting his team to play the right way.

“I think when young guys come in, most of them, honestly, because they’re super talented offensive players, the level they were at, they really didn’t have to play a lot of defense,” he said. “They had the puck most of the time, and they could outscore their mistakes. In this league, you almost never outscore your mistakes. It’s first just getting guys to understand that it’s really, really difficult to outscore your mistakes. Efficiency at this level is extremely important, meaning creating a little bit more than you give up, and if you give up a lot, it’s hard to do that.

“Ryan, I got to know him a little bit over this summer, and he’s a really good coach. We do have similar challenges, but I wouldn’t call them challenges. They’re just really good opportunities to watch young, talented players grow. Listen, I’d rather have young, talented players, or just talented players in general, and help them learn how to play both sides of the puck than not have that talent.”

It will be fun to see if Blashill and Warsofsky are still the head coaches of these two teams when they are both in the Stanley Cup Playoffs again. I’d bet money that they will be. They will add to the rivalry as two ultra-competitive coaches who respect each other, but want to win more than anything.  

“I’ve watched them quite a bit,” Warsofsky said of the Blackhawks. “Obviously, Blashill and his coaching staff have done a really good job. I think they’ve taken the next step in how they need to play with structure. They’ve gotten some uptick in play for the younger players. They have some young defensemen who have come a long way, as well. This is a good, young team that’s hungry. They work every night. They skate. They can get on you quick.”

While Blashill takes things one game at a time, he can always look at the big picture. He knows the teams that are on the same path as his, and he’s excited about what the future holds.

“It’s an organization similar to ours that’s gone through a rebuild,” he said of the Sharks. “Both hope to be really good here in the near future and be teams that are going to compete against each other. These are similar to when we played Anaheim; they’re fun games to be a part of, not just for tonight’s game but with an eye to the future as well. Certainly, these are still big points tonight for both teams, and we want to come out with that urgency needed.”

While Connor Bedard and Celebrini will get all the spotlight tonight, the two guys behind the benches will play key roles in getting their franchises back to NHL glory, too.