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Why Luke Richardson might not be the coach of the future for the Chicago Blackhawks

After many questionable lineup decisions and mismanaging younger players, it might be time to have a conversation about whether or not Luke Richardson is the coach of the future for the Chicago Blackhawks.

By Grant Blair |
San Jose Sharks v Chicago Blackhawks
San Jose Sharks v Chicago Blackhawks / Michael Reaves/GettyImages
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Entering his third season as the Chicago Blackhawks head coach, Luke Richardson and the Hawks have been at the bottom of the league throughout his tenure as the Hawks continue rebuilding.

His record over the three seasons he's been with the Hawks isn't going to be very good (51-105-14), but with general manager Kyle Davidson adding seven players in free agency, you need to see some sort of improvement from year to year.

Just looking at the record won't paint the whole picture of how Richardson has done as the Head Coach. You want to see that he is getting the most out of his players and developing players to reach their full potential.

For a team hoping to be on the rise and push for the playoffs in a few years, player development is critical in getting the team to take that next step.

Poor Lineup Decisions

To this point, though, he hasn't done a good job at all. Through six games this season, we have seen Lukas Reichel scratched through four games, and then when he was finally put in the lineup, he got buried on the fourth line between 35-year-old Craig Smith and 36-year-old Pat Maroon.

To make matters worse he was put at center which if you remember the experiment they had with him at center last season, that's not his position.

He is more effective as a winger. It only took for some guys getting injured to be put back on a line with Andreas Athanasiou where his line was the only one that scored in their 4-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres. It's not just this season either, last year Reichel was in and out of the lineup many times with no consistency.

Not only Reichel, but Nolan Allan after a strong camp and even starting the first game of the season against Utah and playing well ended up with him back in the press box for two straight games. With Wyatt Kaiser healthy again it made Allan the odd man out. He is only now getting put back into the lineup because Alec Martinez suffered a lower-body injury and was put on injured reserve.

Isaak Phillips is another younger defenseman who hasn't been able to get consistent playing time under Luke Richardson. He is now 23 and has appeared in 53 games for the Blackhawks. With how poorly T.J. Brodie has started this season, you would think a guy like Phillips would get a shot at earning some playing time.

Scratching a player for multiple games at a time, especially younger players does absolutely nothing to help with their development.

Keeping veterans in the lineup just for the sake of it, even if they haven't played well, is not what you need for a coach of a rebuilding team.

Another prime example of a very questionable lineup decision from Richardson is just today, and he is making Phillip Kurashev a healthy scratch with Pat Maroon still in the lineup against the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday.

Kurashev has been slotted in as the second-line center for every game this season. He has had a good supporting cast on that line with Taylor Hall and Tyler Bertuzzi, but his natural position isn't a center. He has, for the most part, always been a winger for the Hawks which is his stronger position.

Players like Connor Bedard and Phillip Kurashev, who have shown they have chemistry together, should stick together. Same with players lower on the depth chart, like Andreas Athanasiou and Lukas Reichel, who both have very good speed and skill and have shown some flashes of chemistry as well.

Though the new captain has been pretty solid to this point of the season at 36 years old it would make a lot more sense to have him play more of a checking style role with Jason Dickinson on the third line who he has also shown to have some solid chemistry with and give the younger skilled guys more opportunities higher in the lineup.

Winning isn't the end all be all with the state of this team.

The Hawks aren't competing for a playoff spot as they are still in the midst of their rebuild, so now is the time to figure out who has a future with the team two to three years down the line instead of having these older veterans taking up roster spots and not giving the younger guys a fair shot at proving they can be an established player for the Hawks.

Lack of Rebuilding Experience

This season aside, throughout Luke Richardson's coaching career, he has never been on a rebuilding team until he came to Chicago.

In his previous coaching gig, where he served as the assistant coach for the Montreal Canadians, they were a pretty middle-of-the-pack team, making the playoffs two out of the four seasons he was there, including their Cinderella run to the cup final in the bubble playoffs.

Before that, at the NHL level, he served as an assistant coach for a season with the New York Islanders and then three seasons with the Ottawa Senators from 2009-2012 when those teams also weren't rebuilding. The Senators made the playoffs two out of the three years he was there, getting knocked out in the first round both times.

As a coach obviously, you always want to win games and the Blackhawks aren't necessarily on the tank train as much as in years past but the main priority should be player development and giving the younger players, the ones who might be on the team in a few years when the team is good, a chance to earn their spot.

But when you have a coach who isn't all that experienced in coaching a rebuilding team, it could be very costly for the rebuild if players aren't developed correctly.

With the plethora of prospects the Blackhawks have in the fold you almost have to wonder if Luke Richardson is the right man for the job to develop the next generation of Blackhawks players when he's already been mismanaging the current set of younger players on the team.

We are only six games into the season so there is not any chance of a coaching change in the near future but it is fair to question whether or not Luke Richardson is the coach of the future for the Chicago Blackhawks.

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