Throughout the early stages of the 2024-25 season, head coach Luke Richardson has heavily used the healthy scratch as a method to get underperforming players back on track. A trend that started with the likes of Lukas Reichel and Andreas Athanasiou reached its climax Saturday in Vancouver, when Hart Trophy winner Taylor Hall was sent to the press box for the night.

As the team returned to Chicago after the two-game road trip, we quickly learned that the move wasn’t exactly the result of a meticulous plan. Hall told the media that he was blindsided by the decision and that he didn’t necessarily agree with it.

“It was unexpected. I just didn’t know I was even close to being in that spot, really. If there were some conversations in the days leading up about my game, or if I was constantly being shown video, it would be one thing. But I was a bit surprised.”

– Taylor Hall

That isn’t to say that Hall is in the right – it doesn’t take a mastermind to see that his play of late may have warranted a healthy scratch. But the fact that the player and coach seemed to disagree on the decision, and that Richardson didn’t even have a discussion, is pretty intriguing. After all, what does sitting a player down do if you don’t talk to them about it?

To his credit, Richardson admitted he didn’t handle the situation as well as he could have.

“That could be part of my problem, too. Sometimes you give veterans a little bit more of a grace period. I know he’s been frustrated and I don’t want the frustration to leak too long, so it was a good time for a little setback. But for me to communicate with him, I need to get to know the player more — to see how they like to handle that. Obviously we’ve talked a lot during and after, but maybe before, it needs to be more. That’s just something that I learn about one player.”

– Head coach Luke Richardson

The news of a disagreement between player and coach further intensifies the Blackhawks’ biggest question – has Richardson lost the locker room? Sure, that’s a bit of an overreaction from one disagreement/mistake. However, this is only the latest in a series of somewhat inexplicable actions by the head coach. He’s rarely put out the same line combinations twice, sticking his lines in a blender that continues to fail night after night. This lineup wasn’t exactly built to score a ton of goals, but there’s a difference between a low-scoring team and one that has scored one regulation goal in each of its last five games, and some of that blame inevitably falls on the head coach.

The players aren’t oblivious to the team’s recent failures. While there’s no specific indication that the team is losing trust in its head coach, the relationship there grows a bit thinner with each loss, and mistakes like this one certainly don’t help.