Bruins Beating Blackhawks Causes Sizable Shake-Up For Chicago

The Bruins defeating the Blackhawks on Wednesday night didn’t just keep Chicago with the worst record in the NHL.

It also cost Luke Richardson his job as the Blackhawks head coach.

The Blackhawks announced Thursday — less than 24 hours after losing to the Bruins at United Center — that they fired Luke Richardson following an 8-16-2 start. Anders Sorensen was named the interim head coach for Chicago. Richardson, who spent two-plus seasons at the helm of the Blackhawks, finished with a putrid 57-118-15 record.

“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 in a statement. “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.”

The Bruins were in a similar position to the Blackhawks just over two weeks ago when they relieved Jim Montgomery of head coaching duties. Like Richardson, Montgomery was in his third season with the Bruins, but had achieved much greater success.

Boston nevertheless made the coaching chance and it paid dividends so far. The Bruins surely haven’t fixed all their problems but are 6-2 since interim head coach Joe Sacco took over.

Richardson probably won’t find another job as quick as Montgomery, who became the head coach of the St. Louis Blues just five days after being fired from the Bruins. And Richardson has the Bruins to partly thank for having to look for a new job now in the first place.