Blackhawks GM Kyle Davidson defends coach Jeff Blashill amid the team’s lackluster start

CHICAGO (AP) — Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson defended coach Jeff Blashill on Wednesday while taking responsibility for the team’s lackluster start.

Davidson also said Mark Eaton is going to be embedded with the coaching staff for the foreseeable future to help improve individual defensive skills for one of the NHL’s worst defensive teams. Eaton, a former NHL defenseman, is the team’s assistant general manager for player development.

Heading into this season, Davidson and several Chicago players talked about contending for a playoff spot. But the Blackhawks are off to a 4-13-1 start after dropping six in a row and nine of 10 overall.

“Simply put, we’ve not been good enough,” Davidson said. “This isn’t what we told our fans to expect. And, you know, I take responsibility in this and I’m not going to come up here today and make any excuses.”

Chicago concluded an ugly three-game trip with a 9-2 loss at Carolina on Saturday night. The Blackhawks had four days off after the matchup with the Hurricanes, leading to speculation about Blashill’s future in his second season with the franchise, but Davidson decided to keep the team’s coaching staff in place.

“Blash is our head coach,” Davidson said. “I have full confidence in him. The players believe in him. He’s made them better.”

Blashill, 52, is the second full-time coach hired by Davidson since he took over as interim GM after Stan Bowman resigned in October 2021. Davidson, who joined the organization as a hockey operations intern in 2010, had the interim tag dropped on March 1, 2022.

The rebuilding Blackhawks finished No. 31 in the NHL each of the past three seasons. They haven’t made the postseason since the league used an expanded playoff format for the pandemic-affected 2019-20 season.

“With the maturation of young players and the players we’ve drafted and bringing in the league, we have to get through these rough times that they’re experiencing in their development in order to get to the other side,” Davidson said.

Davidson said he has been having conversations with other GMs about upgrading his roster through the trade market, but he isn’t going to make a move just to make a move. The Blackhawks have three first-round picks and two second-round selections in next year’s draft.

In the meantime, Blashill and the coaches have been focusing on fundamentals during the team’s break before Thursday night’s game against Buffalo.

“We talked about, you know, little different points of emphasis and things like that, making sure we’re better in certain areas,” Blashill said. “We’ve had a chance to have three productive practices and now we got to go out and play.”

Blashill is 33-52-15 in 100 games with Chicago, but he also has been backed by his players during his team’s difficult start.

“Yeah, 100 percent belief,” captain Connor Bedard said. “I think he gives us a great game plan and super easy to talk to, really, you really know his message. He and the whole coaching staff are doing a great job.”

Some of Chicago’s trouble can be attributed to injuries. Bedard missed the first six games of the season. Defenseman Bowen Byram and forward Patrick Kane are on injured reserve with upper-body injuries, but they practiced on Wednesday in non-contact jerseys.

The biggest issue is team defense. The Blackhawks are allowing 4.22 goals per game, ranking No. 31 in the league going into Wednesday’s action. That’s where Eaton is expected to help when he joins the coaching staff beginning on Monday.

“We’re not defending well enough,” Davidson said. “We give up odd-man rushes, specifically 2-on-1s and breakaways, at a rate that’s, you know, one of the highest in the league, as well as the high-danger chances that we’re giving up at a too high of a rate in our defensive zone, which obviously then leads to goals against, which we have to do a much better job of cutting down on.”

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