On Thursday afternoon, the Blackhawks announced that head coach Luke Richardson had been relieved of his duties, effective immediately.

“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. 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.”

– GM Kyle Davidson

The Blackhawks’ head coach joined the team as Chicago’s 40th head coach in franchise history in June 2022, guiding the Blackhawks through the toughest years of their ongoing rebuild. He wasn’t given much of a roster at all in his first two seasons, and was praised for his leadership throughout those campaigns anyway.

By the start of this season, Richardson was officially on the hot seat. I wrote this summer that because of the slew of free agent additions that were brought in in July, his team would have to show signs of improvement. After the Blackhawks made every excuse in the book for him (many of which were valid), it was finally go time in Chicago.

This season, which was expected to be a big improvement, has been anything but. With a loss to the Bruins Wednesday, the Blackhawks sank to 8-16-2, the worst mark in the entire NHL. With plenty of veteran talent on the roster this season, that wasn’t acceptable, and many fans started calling for Richardson’s head.

It didn’t help matters when Taylor Hall and Luke Richardson had a disagreement about Hall being a healthy scratch two weeks ago. While Richardson owned up to his blunder, it certainly put the head coach under the microscope. Suddenly, the constant line changes and massive failures (especially in the scoring department) weren’t quite as acceptable.

In the wake of the move, the Blackhawks have named Rockford head coach Anders Sorensen as their interim head coach. Sorensen, who was named to the Illinois Hockey Hall of Fame in 2023, has served as head coach of the IceHogs since he was named their interim in late 2021. In each of his three seasons since, Sorensen has led the IceHogs to a playoff spot, each time making it out of the preliminary round.