Chicago Blackhawks fire head coach Luke Richardson

As per Frank Seravalli the Chicago Blackhawks have fired head coach Luke Richardson.

Effective immediately, the Blackhawks are promoting Anders Sorensen from Rockford to become interim head coach. Mark Eaton, Blackhawks Assistant General Manager overseeing player development, will assume interim head coaching responsibilities in Rockford.

The Blackhawks are currently 8-16-2 this season through 26 games and sit last in the Central Division.

Sorensen, a native of Sweden becomes the third European-born and trained NHL coach. Sorensen has amassed a 117-89-16-7 record in 229 career AHL games serving as head coach, all with Rockford. Ahead of the 2021-22 campaign, Sorensen was promoted to interim head coach of Rockford and earned a 35-26-5 record. He guided the team to its first Calder Cup Playoffs berth for the first time since the 2017-18 campaign.

“Today I made the difficult decision to move on from Luke as our head coach. We thank him for his efforts and contributions to the organization and our community,” Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson said. “As we have begun to take steps forward in our rebuilding process, we felt that the results did not match our expectations for a higher level of execution this season and ultimately came to the decision that a change was necessary. We wish Luke and his family all the best moving forward.”

“On behalf of the entire Blackhawks organization, I’d like to thank Luke for his dedication over the past three seasons,” said Blackhawks Chairman and CEO Danny Wirtz. “I fully support Kyle’s decision to make this change as he continues to do what is needed to move our team forward. I have the utmost confidence in him and the rest of our Hockey Operations team as they begin their search for the next head coach of the Chicago Blackhawks.”