Chicago Blackhawks head coach receives harsh criticism from Utah defenseman

Before Blashill can even coach and get a game under his belt with the Blackhawks, he is already drawing criticism for how he coaches, with one of his former players, Utah Mammoth defenseman Mikhail Sergachev, who sounded off on how terrible Blashill was when he had him as a coach with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Sergachev was with the Lightning from 2017 to 2024, and was under Blashill when he was their assistant coach, and said on the “Smol Talk” podcast (a Russian hockey podcast) that Blashill came in and completely changed their system after they had gone to three finals.

Sergachev on Blashill:

“And then we changed our system – the coach from Detroit came in. I mean, we had gone to three finals, and this guy comes in and says: ‘We’re not playing like that anymore. Now we’re playing like [explative] Vegas.’ And we’re all like, ‘Why?’ He goes, ‘They have a better system. It’ll work for us.’ Well, it didn’t work for me. Didn’t work for anyone. Everyone ended up with a negative plus-minus, we were all getting outscored.”

Blashill, in his two seasons as the Lightning’s assistant coach, went 138-86-20, while he went 204-261-72 with the Red Wings.

The future is now for the Chicago Blackhawks

The Blackhawks have been relatively quiet this offseason, outside of hiring Blashill, making a few trades, and selecting Anton Frondell third overall in this year’s draft. The management of the Blackhawks has decided not to sign veterans after the production they got from them last season, and instead is focused on their young core.

Blashill has a tough job ahead of him, but there is enough talent on the roster to get things turned around. This upcoming 2025-2026 season marks the 100th season in the Blackhawks’ history, and hopefully, it will be better than last season.