CHICAGO — The Blackhawks have their new head coach, and the choice is no surprise.
Jeff Blashill has been named the 42nd head coach in franchise history, Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson announced Thursday in a news release that’s been posted on the team’s website.
Blashill, 51, joins the Blackhawks after spending the previous three seasons as an assistant coach for the Tampa Bay Lightning. Prior to that, he was the head coach of the Detroit Red Wings for seven seasons, from 2015-22.
Multiple reports in recent days, including from the Chicago Sun-Times, had placed Blashill as the leading candidate for the job.
He replaces Luke Richardson, who was fired in December during his third season behind the bench. Anders Sorensen was elevated to interim head coach for the rest of the 2024-25 season, one the Blackhawks finished at 25-46-11, the second-worst record in the NHL.
After winning three Stanley Cup titles in six seasons from 2009-15, the Blackhawks have made the playoffs just once over the last eight seasons and have not advanced past the first round since raising that third Stanley Cup in 2015.
They’ve missed the playoffs five straight seasons, finishing no higher than sixth place in the Western Conference’s eight-team Central Division during that time, including three consecutive last-place finishes.
Now, an organization that’s one of the NHL’s Original Six franchises and has six Stanley Cup titles in a history stretching back to the 1920s will turn to Blashill in an effort to get back to NHL prominence.
“Jeff is an incredibly smart and talented coach who boasts more than 25 years of coaching experience across developmental leagues, the NHL and the world stage,” Davidson said in the release. “He’s thrived when in a position to develop young players and has shown he’s capable of blending that into overall team success, a vision and philosophy we share for where we are today and where we see our team in the future.
“We couldn’t be more excited for what’s to come under Jeff’s direction.”
Blashill will have plenty of young talent to work with as he begins his Blackhawks tenure. The team has had a multitude of high draft picks in recent years due to its poor record, including franchise cornerstone center Connor Bedard, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 draft, who won’t turn 20 until July.
The Blackhawks then drafted defenseman Artyom Levshunov, also still just 19, with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2024 draft, and they hold the No. 3 overall pick in this year’s draft, coming up in late June.
Long on experience
As Davidson highlighted, Blashill has plenty of NHL experience, including as a head coach for another Original Six franchise.
Blashill, a Detroit native, first joined the Red Wings as an assistant coach prior to the 2011-12 season. He held that position for just one season before being named head coach of the Grand Rapids Griffins, the Red Wings’ American Hockey League affiliate.
Blashill led the Griffins to the Calder Cup playoffs in each of his three seasons with the team, winning seven of nine postseason series and guiding Grand Rapids to the first Calder Cup championship in franchise history in 2013. He won the 2013-14 Louis A. R. Pieri Memorial Award as the AHL’s most outstanding coach and was named a head coach for the 2014 AHL All-Star Classic.
After Blashill had so much success with their AHL affiliate, the Red Wings made him their head coach, a position he held from 2015-22. Blashill led Detroit to the Stanley Cup playoffs for the 25th season in a row in his first season behind the bench in 2015-16, but he was unable to guide the Red Wings back to the playoffs in his next six seasons with the franchise.
Blashill ended his tenure with the Red Wings following the 2021-22 season with a 204-261-72 record, coaching the fifth-most games in franchise history (537) and winning the sixth-most. He then joined the Lightning as an assistant coach, helping Tampa Bay reach the playoffs in each of his three seasons there from 2022-25.
On the international stage, Blashill served as head coach of Team USA three times at the International Ice Hockey Federation World Championships (2017, 2018, 2019), guiding the team to a bronze medal in 2018. He also worked as an assistant coach at both the 2022 IIHF World Championship and the 2009 World Junior Championship.
Blashill played college hockey as a goaltender for four seasons at NCAA Division I Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Mich. He began his coaching career in 1998-99 as an assistant at his alma mater and then served as an assistant at Miami University (Ohio) from 2002-08.
Blashill was then both head coach and general manager of the United States Hockey League’s Indiana Ice for two seasons from 2008-10, winning a Clark Cup championship in 2009. He returned to the college ranks for one season as head coach of Western Michigan University — which just won the men’s Frozen Four national championship this past season — in 2010-11 before joining the Red Wings in the NHL ranks.