Chicago Blackhawks fire Mike Haviland, promote Norm Maciver -NHL Update
The Chicago Blackhawks made some key moves in their front office by firing assistant coach Mike Haviland and promoted Norm Maciver to the position of assistant general manager of the team following the transition of Marc Bergevin to the Montreal Canadiens
as their new GM.
Dropping Haviland from the assistant position cleared up a number of rumours about head coach, Joel Queneville, considering a move to Montreal Canadiens to work under Bergevin but the air has cleared now.
Norm Maciver’s promotion was announced on Monday, May 7, 2012, while Haviland was fired the following day on Tuesday.
Chicago general manager, Stan Bowman, made the announcement about Maciver.
"Norm has proven to be a valuable asset to our hockey operations over the past five years, so we are excited to be able to elevate him to this role," Bowman said. "He has an excellent handle on the players within our organization, from recent draft picks
to veterans, and a great eye for talent evaluating.”
The decision to move Haviland out is termed to be primarily based on the advice of coach Quenneville as he is focusing on making some key changes to improve the team for the upcoming season, but he denied having a major role in the decision.
"I felt like a change was necessary and ... it was not an easy decision," Quenneville said during a teleconference on Tuesday about letting Haviland go. "It was tough on Mike and I'm respectful of the job that he did. It's not the blame game here. That's
where we're at."
It is quite clear at the moment that despite have two years remaining on his contract, Joel Quenneville could be the next that Blackhawks’ phase out if the team does not perform up to expectations. This time it was Haviland to go but if Chicago cannot get
past the opening round of the postseason, something they have failed to do for the past two seasons now, Quenneville could be facing a tough time.
Joel Quenneville also added that he has been studying what went wrong during the past two seasons and is in the process of reassessing himself in order to make the team better overall.
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