00:00Apparently found out who the next head coach of the Chicago Blackhawks will be after a long and tenuous wait.
00:09The assistant coach with the Tampa Bay Lightning, Jeff Blascha, will take over for the Chicago Blackhawks.
00:17Of course, he was formerly the head coach of the Detroit Red Wings for years.
00:20And now he's coming to Chicago to try to energize, teach, and take a young core to the next level.
00:26The biggest of those players being generational talent, phenom, Conor Bedard, who has not gotten off to the best of starts to his NHL career.
00:36But he will get a new chance with Jeff Blascha, who was the head coach of the Detroit Red Wings between 2015 and 2022.
00:46And listen, we talk about teams all the time that look like they are rudderless and that they're maybe stuck on a treadmill.
00:53The teams that play winter sports professionally in this town, they fit the mold of that.
00:59When you talk about the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago Blackhawks, you're hoping this hire now can take them in the right direction, give them some direction, hopefully towards a winning record.
01:08That's the first step.
01:09Win and get Conor Bedard playing at an all-star level.
01:12And you wonder, is this hire, bringing Blascha in?
01:16Will he be a guy who's mainly a placeholder?
01:19Because the Blackhawks are a team right now that I would imagine don't feel like the most desirable job in the sport at the moment.
01:25But then there's only 30 of them.
01:27So if you're looking for a head coach, looking for somebody to be highly compensated,
01:30then there will be folks who are willing to come in and try to help nurture the development, not only of Conor Bedard, but to help move this franchise into its next phase.
01:41Once things have been torn down and now you've got a young core that you believe you'll be in a position to build around.
01:47So now you've got to nurture the talents of Conor Bedard.
01:50And there was a sophomore tip for Bedard.
01:52So can you get more out of him than the Blackhawks got last season?
01:56Will Jeff Blascha come in and just be sort of the placeholder for the manager who can come in and actually take them back to some sort of a postseason Stanley Cup sort of chase?
02:05Or is he the guy that's just going to try to actually have the gig short term and perhaps not be a part of that development?
02:13You would really hope he'll be someone who can stay long term here, but it's not necessarily a resume that you feel like that's a guarantee or a sure shot.
