Blackhawks GM unintentionally puts himself on hot seat by blaming former coach

Maybe there is some truth to that. Perhaps Richardson is not the right person for the job and interim head coach Anders Sorensen might be able to fix some of those flaws.

For Davidson’s sake, he better, because when the general manager stands in front of the media and basically throws the former head coach under the bus for the team’s flaws, there is only one other place for blame to go if things do not turn around.

That would be toward the person who  actually built the roster: Davidson.

Davidson took over the general manager early in the 2021-22 season after former general manager Stan Bowman resigned in the wake of the Kyle Beach scandal. Even though he was new to the GM role at that time, he was not new to the Blackhawks organization and had worked closely with Bowman in building the roster, managing the salary cap and kickstarting the team’s rebuild. His fingerprints are all over this roster. 

This roster is not particularly good.

The Blackhawks have a young cornerstone player in 2023 No. 1 overall pick Connor Bedard, but he is going through some early career struggles as a 19-year-old on a bad team. There are some other encouraging young players in defenseman Alex Vlasic and forward Lukas Reichel, but there are not enough. 

A large portion of the roster is mid-level veterans who are simply there to serve as trade bait or to try to help a rebuilding team become more competitive. That has not happened — or come close to happening. 

The Blackhawks are working on their fifth consecutive non-playoff season, and their seventh season in the past eight years without the postseason. That only postseason appearance came in 2019-20 in an expanded playoff field when they were the 24th ranked team in the league’s overall standings. They are now close to a decade as being one of the worst teams in hockey with no immediate end in sight. 

In the short term, Davidson thinks a new coach and a new voice will make a change. Maybe it might spark a couple of wins in the short term and provide an immediate jolt to a flat roster. But when comparing this roster to others around the league, it is pretty clear where the biggest issue is: talent. 

Davidson putting the blame on the coach is only going to bring more attention to that if the new coach does not make a difference. He probably will not make the difference Davidson is hoping.