Chicago fires Joel Quenneville

[Peter D.]

If I'm a bunch of teams, I am contacting him this morning and willing to fire my coach to bring him in if he wants the position.

St. Louis, Detroit, Anaheim

Philadelphia, Ottawa (save for the cheap owner getting in the way), Buffalo, Arizona, LA (even with the change a couple days ago)

 

[Kin]

I totally get your argument if this was a GM who was a few years on the job and inherited a coach. But like I said Bowman's been GM for 9 years and was a part of the management group that hired Quenneville in the first place. I just don't think he can play that card.

Well, I'd admit it's not conclusive but I'd say we have a pretty solid piece of evidence that he can or did. Or, at the very least, a version of that card wherein the success the team has enjoyed under Bowman gives him a little more latitude than his coach in a proportionate manner to the way that all GMs have a little more latitude, even the very successful ones.

 

[herman]

My only problem with this is that ownership should have made the decision to fire both the GM and coach here. Bowman's been GM for almost as long as Quenneville was coach (and has been with the team since 2001!!!), so if things were stale and change was needed it should have applied to both of them.

This.

The usual response when a coach gets fired is to center the discussion around coach vs. players.  To me it seems like the GM gets protected more than the coach or players in these situations.  If the team is bad, the players get blamed for not performing and the coach gets fired.  The GM sits back and fires the coach (or two) before they face heat.

The difference between this case and the usual coach firing is that this was a clear power struggle spanning years between the GM and the coach almost irrespective of the on-ice performance. The Stanley Cups papered over the tension a couple of times, but Bowman literally threw out all of Quenneville's friends and relied upon players. Bowman was always going to win out because Scotty is still a presence in the Blackhawks front office.

Mark Lazerus has a bit more on the matter.
https://theathletic.com/637244/2018/11/06/fall-guy-joel-quenneville-takes-the-heat-for-stan-bowmans-roster-decisions/

 

[herman]

If I'm a bunch of teams, I am contacting him this morning and willing to fire my coach to bring him in if he wants the position.

St. Louis, Detroit, Anaheim

Philadelphia, Ottawa (save for the cheap owner getting in the way), Buffalo, Arizona, LA (even with the change a couple days ago)

I think Arizona might have a similar issue to Ottawa here. LA has an heir apparent in Marco Sturm, so I don't know if they're going to add tenure on top of his growth path.

Philly though... Yeah I can see that.

 

[hockeyfan1]

A reiteration of the reasoning (of Quennville's firing):

[tweet]1059833160488361984[/tweet]