Blackhawks fire Richardson, name Sorensen interim head coach

The last-place Chicago Blackhawks fired head coach Luke Richardson on Thursday, the team announced.

Rockford IceHogs head coach Anders Sorensen will take over Richardson's post on an interim basis.

Richardson was in his third season on the job, but the club didn't seem to be making progress. Chicago sits last in the entire NHL with 18 points. The team owned a 57-118-15 record under his stewardship.

"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," 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."

Sorensen, who hails from Sweden, becomes the third European-born and trained head coach in NHL history after Finland's Alpo Suhonen and Czechia's Ivan Hlinka.

The 49-year-old Sorensen is expected to remain the team's interim bench boss for the rest of the season, and the organization will conduct a coaching search after the campaign ends, TSN's Pierre LeBrun reports.

Sorensen has worked in the Blackhawks organization since 2014-15, serving as AHL Rockford's head coach since November 2021. The IceHogs made the playoffs in each of the last three years, losing in Round 2 each time.