Chicago Blackhawks’ Joel Quenneville Is Back To His Old Bad Habits
By Paul Chancey
@ChanceyPaul
Rob Grabowski – USA TODAY Sports
I had thought that Joel Quenneville‘s mistreatment of prospects and certain skill players was over. Then the Chicago Blackhawks acquired Dan Carcillo. It seems as if Quenneville now has his “tough guy” security blanket. Meanwhile, the Hawks dealt defenseman Nick Leddy and put Peter Regin on waivers. Leddy is not much of a surprise, but Regin was. And now, I’m beginning to wonder if Quenneville has learned his lesson from last season.
Okay, first things first; Teuvo Teravainen was not going to make the roster at all this year; the Hawks already had a second-line center in Brad Richards. But Jeremy Morin is big league-ready and then some. Morin ended up in Quenneville’s doghouse for much of his tenure with the organization, and was inexplicably left of the roster for much of the playoffs. Regin got the same treatment, but when the Hawks played three lines in the Western Conference Final, Quenneville should have gotten the message.
Morin is a scorer, but he can also fight, and showed that to the Montreal Canadiens. Heck, most of his videos on YouTube are of him fighting when he was with the OHL Kitchener Rangers. Apparently that wasn’t enough for Quenneville though, and the Hawks signed Carcillo. As this has been mentioned multiple times, it makes no sense whatsoever. Rumors of a power struggle between general manager Stan Bowman and Quenneville have seemed to die thanks to this move.
The league is changing, as now-departed enforcer Brandon Bollig told me. Enforcers are going by the wayside, but Quenneville is still stuck in that mindset that apparently tough guys are good to have on the roster. Morin is more than ready, but Quenneville needs to be told by management that he needs to play young players. In fact, I saw a Twitter joke that said if Quenneville was coaching the Hawks at the time, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews would have been sent to the Rockford IceHogs for “more seasoning.” Sadly, this joke seems to be too indicative of Quenneville’s thought process.
Paul Chancey is a Chicago Blackhawks writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ChanceyPaul and add him to your network at Google+.
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