Blackhawks do not believe season is lost after firing Colliton, GM says
Davidson sees coaching change as chance to play 'right way,' have clean slate following 1-9-2 start
"You find out if you're a [Stanley Cup Playoff] team in April, and let's be totally honest, the math is not in our favor right now to get to that point," Davidson said. "But no season is ever lost, because you're always going to be able to learn something, you're always going to be able to continue your evaluation process."
The Blackhawks (2-9-2) have six points, tied with the Montreal Canadiens for second fewest in the NHL ahead of only the Arizona Coyotes (three), and are seventh in the eight-team Central Division after a 2-1 overtime win against the Nashville Predators on Sunday in Derek King's debut as coach.
Colliton was fired Saturday, three years to the day after he took over for Joel Quenneville, and replaced by King, who was coach of Rockford, Chicago's American Hockey League affiliate.
"In terms of putting labels on playoff team or anything like that, this is a new era now," Davidson said. "I'm newly in charge. Where we go from here will be based on the evaluation that started when I took the job and continues now. There's a great opportunity for these players to have a blank slate with Derek, both individually and collectively."
Davidson was named general manager Oct. 27, when Stan Bowman stepped down as Blackhawks president of hockey operations and general manager following an independent investigation of former forward Kyle Beach's allegations of sexual assault by then-video coach Brad Aldrich in 2010. He has been given full autonomy to proceed as he sees fit with any area of hockey operations or the roster.
Davidson said the search for a coach will begin in the offseason and he'll help ownership in deciding future leadership.
"Midseason, it's not something, you're not able to explore maybe the number of (coaching) candidates that you like, so that's something we'll explore after the season. We have a lot of time to get there," Davidson said. "In the meantime, we're going to focus on getting some wins and playing the right way and getting back to a brand of hockey that our fans can be proud of."
The Blackhawks are allowing 3.69 goals per game, second most in the NHL behind the Coyotes (4.00), and their 14 goals at 5-on-5 are third fewest, ahead of the Boston Bruins (13 in nine games) and Dallas Stars (11 in 10 games).
"As players, you always feel like you could have done more to make that situation not happen," forward Patrick Kane said of Colliton's firing. "But came in today and I thought (assistant) Marc Crawford and 'Kinger' did a good job of getting the message across that we wanted to play free, we wanted to play on our instincts and also play with a lot of energy, which I thought we did tonight. But it's definitely always I guess sad when something like that happens."
King said he was "shocked" to get the call Saturday. With so much change in the organization the past two weeks, he said he wants to help the players settle down and feel more comfortable.
"I want these guys to feel relaxed," King said. "They're tight. So my personality is going to come in and just let them take a deep breath, get your shoulders dropped, and go have some fun. Get back to the game we love to play. We've played it since we were 5, 6 years old, and it hasn't changed. You might be making a little more money now, but it's just time to go back playing some good solid, hard hockey and have some fun with it."
The Blackhawks have 69 regular-season games remaining and an uphill battle if they want to challenge for a playoff spot. The evaluation process will be ongoing.
"We're going to learn a lot -- I'm going to learn a lot -- in terms of what we see over the next weeks and months. We can decide what direction we want to take at that point," Davidson said. "There's still a lot of information yet to be learned. I don't think a season is ever lost in terms of your ability to learn and understand what you're dealing with. Definitely not lost."
Captain Jonathan Toews said the Blackhawks have to take it day by day.
"I don't think that the focus is on the full season or the big picture right now," the center said. "I think we've just got to go into every game feeling better and better, feeling more and more confident about our game, and just build on it. The whole stretch of losing hockey we played we all recognized we have talent in the room, we have what it takes and we all know we're extremely underachieving. So there's still that belief that's behind it all. Tonight was a big win. It feels good. The crowd felt good about it. It's good to get a win for the fans on home ice here. Not to put too much pressure on the next game, but it's a process we can build off of and go have fun and play the way we did tonight in the next one and be confident we're going to get the results."
