by Mark Lazerus
Despite his understandable concerns, there never arose any issues that Toews couldn’t handle. In his first year as captain, the Blackhawks made the playoffs for the first time in six years, going all the way to the Western Conference final. The following spring, Toews was a Stanley Cup champion and a Conn Smythe winner, and on his way to becoming the most admired leader in the game.
It was a bold decision to name a 20-year-old captain after just one season. Perhaps a bit risky, too. But in hindsight, not only was it the right decision, it was the obvious one.
“He’s not selfish in any way,” Eager says. “He knows what’s going on, always, with everyone. If some guy is struggling for a couple of games, he knows, and he goes over and talks to him. He’s got a lot on his plate, but he always makes time for having a good feel for his team and each player individually. He has such a great feel for that stuff. He’s definitely the best captain I’ve ever played for.”
Commit to the Indian
The four parallel, parabolic creases lining Denis Savard’s forehead when he gets animated during a discussion are the only signs of age these days. He’s still smooth as silk, still affable and amiable, still Savoir Faire. He’s got a meeting with some folks from American Express coming up in a little bit, and he’s genuinely excited to tell them about some of the Blackhawks’ young players, to share some war stories, and to hopefully coax a few more advertising bucks out of them in the process.
This is what he does as an official Blackhawks team ambassador. He does meet-and-greets. He signs autographs. He smiles for pictures. He sells the Blackhawks to the public and to businesses, and it’s an easy pitch for a guy who “bleeds the Blackhawks.”
“I won a Cup in Montreal and I grew up there,” Savard says. “But this is my team.”
Savard says he’s never been happier, never been looser. Which is good, because during his previous job with the Blackhawks—head coach—he had never been so stressed out.
“He put so much pressure on himself, being the Hall of Famer with his jersey retired,” Adam Burish says. “It was really hard on him. I remember him telling me, ‘I’m smoking two packs of cigarettes and drinking two bottles of wine, and it’s gonna kill me. This is gonna kill me.’ And it really wasn’t his fault, either. The team was awful. They had a lot of shitty players, bad guys, bad teammates. He had just a bunch of junk to work with.”
Savard was around for almost all of the dark ages, first as an assistant coach from 1997 through 2006, and then as the head coach from 2006 through the first four games of the 2008–09 season. He knew things were bad, obviously, but it was a scouting trip to Russia in 2003 that really opened his eyes. Savard spent nearly two weeks in Russia, getting a first-hand look at some of the Blackhawks’ most important prospects. When he reported back to owner Bill Wirtz (Savard still refers to him as “Mr. Wirtz”), general manager Mike Smith, and head coach Brian Sutter, he almost didn’t know what to say. It was that bad.
“We’re in for tough times,” he told them.
“Right there and then, I knew it was going to be a problem,” Savard says. “Because if your first-round picks can’t even make your team? I mean, they don’t have to be impact players, but if they can’t even play? That’s going to be a tough time. And we were drafting like 10th, 11th, 12th. It’s not like it was 25th or 30th. It was a struggle. And I don’t know how you recover. You go through dark years. It was bad.”
As bad as it was for players dealing with Wirtz’s penny-pinching ways off the ice, it was even worse for fans. The team was awful, the building was empty, the buzz around the team was nonexistent. And Savard took it all personally—throwing himself into his work at the expense of his health. He’d get home on game nights after midnight and be back in his office at the United Center by 6:00 am, breaking down the game and preparing video sessions for his players.
“I worked really hard at it, I really did,” Savard said. “I didn’t sleep very good. Because everything I engage, I want to be successful at. Everybody wants to be like that, no question, and some are successful and some are not. For me, I felt like I overdid it. And it wasn’t good for my health. First of all, six years as an assistant coach, when we went through hell, that was hard. That took a lot out of me. You try to stay upbeat, but it’s hard. It’s tough, mentally.”
The arrival of Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, and the other budding stars lightened the mood considerably. But it only added to the weight Savard felt. Not only was he the head coach of the team he embodied, now there was actual pressure to win.
If you look around the league, there aren’t a lot of head coaches who were great players. Even Wayne Gretzky fizzled out in Phoenix.
“Sometimes it’s hard for really good players to coach,” Burish said. “They’re yelling, ‘How can you not see that play?’ And you’re like, ‘Well, it’s because I’m not that good, Savy.’ Or, ‘Sorry, Wayne, I’m not No. 99, that’s why.’”
But Savard wanted every player to feel like he could be Denis Savard or Wayne Gretzky. He was a sneaky-good motivator. While Joel Quenneville uses the threat of a benching to put the fear of God into a player and doles out what he calls “important minutes” only with time and experience, Savard tried his best to make every fourth-liner feel like a top-six guy whenever possible.
“You have the mindset of being a fourth-liner, and I think you’re better than that,” he would tell players. “You can’t be content just to be a fourth-line player. Because you’re going to be asked to play in situations that first- and second-line players play over the course of the season.”
So if things were going well in a game and Savard could sense the Blackhawks had all the momentum in their favor, he’d throw a Burish (for whom he fought hard to keep on the team out of training camp in 2007) or a Colin Fraser or any other bottom-six guy on the top line for a few shifts, to give him the feel of being a top guy.
“I was always trying to change their mentality,” Savard said. “I knew I couldn’t get them to be a top-line guy, but I strongly believed I could bring them to another level or two. If I had my third- and fourth-line players believing that they’re top-line guys, I’m going to have a heck of a team. I know a lot of this has to do with skill and stuff, but it’s mental, too. It’s not just hockey. It’s anything in the world. You work hard at something you do, you’re going to have success. If you reach further out, you’re going to have more success. That was my theory. And I get it. I knew they looked at me sometimes like, ‘Really?’ And I’d say, ‘I believe that. I know you can do it. You just have to start believing in you.’”
Savard never got to see his garden grow—at least, not from behind the bench—but it was he who planted the seeds. Eventually, the Blackhawks would need a stern, experienced, detail-oriented leader like Quenneville. But in the early years, with so much raw talent, Savard’s good nature and flexible style created an ideal learning ground.
“Savvy was the perfect coach for me at that time in my development, at that point in my career,” Patrick Sharp says. “I would go out there and for every one good thing I would do on the ice, I’d make two mistakes. Savy encouraged that. He encouraged me to just go out there and play, and let it fly and whatever happens, happens. I owe a lot of my success in the league to Savy letting me make mistakes at that time in my career. I like to think I’ve gotten better over the years, but maybe if you’re in a different situation with a different coach at that time, those mistakes would cost you ice time and cost you opportunity. I’m always grateful to Savy as a coach, because he let me play.”
And he was the perfect coach at the perfect time for the two cornerstone superstars upon which the franchise was being rebuilt. Savard understood what it was like to be that good, that young, that burdened. And he let Toews and Kane run wild on the ice, with almost total impunity.
“He was really good at kind of knowing what makes a young star player tick,” Toews says. “Looking
at the potential the two of us had, he knew what to do to get us off on the right foot. There’s no doubt Kaner and I benefited from having Denis Savard as our first coach. He gave us that extra attention, and was reassuring in the right ways.”
It was Savard who slapped the “C” on Toews’ chest. It was Savard who put Sharp, Toews, and Kane on a line together and let them go crazy in the offensive zone to develop their playmaking skills. And it was the laid-back Savard—not the wild-eyed Quenneville—who unleashed a ridiculous catchphrase that would become a rallying cry for the Blackhawks and their fans alike—one that Savard believes might have cost the Blackhawks a trip to the playoffs.
During that 2007–08 season, the rookie campaign for Toews and Kane, Savard was steaming after a loss at home on January 24, right before the NHL All-Star Game. With a seven-game trip looming after the break, Savard told his players before the game that he wanted them to treat it like the first one of the road trip, and to kick it off in strong fashion.
Instead, the Blackhawks came out flat in a miserable 1–0 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Savard lost his mind afterward, ranting to the press that his players needed to “commit to the Indian.”
“I think I used an F-bomb,” Savard says now, sheepishly.
He didn’t plan it; it just came out that way.
“There are things as players we don’t do,” he says. “We don’t throw our jerseys on the floor. There’s a basket in the middle of the room—put it there neatly. We don’t step on the logo. That’s just respect. That’s what it was about. If you don’t respect our uniform, there’s going to be a problem here. Commit to this. Commit to the jersey. Commit to what we’re trying to do here.”
Though he was let go as head coach before the team realized its potential, Hawks legend Denis Savard was instrumental in the development of Chicago’s young stars.
Savard was still steaming after the break and took it out on the team during the first practice back. It wasn’t an old-school bag skate, with guys puking in the corners, but it was as close as you can come in the modern-day NHL.
“I just beat them up,” Savard says. “I did battle drills. In my day, they would skate you all day, back and forth. I never liked that as a player and I never did that as a coach. But—you’re gonna work. And it’s gonna be hard. It was battle drills, and I wanted them screaming at each other, and I wanted to create a pissed-off mood. And I did that. Those guys were just pissed at me, and that’s what I wanted. Everyone always said I was a nice guy, but I wanted them to be pissed. And they were pissed.
“Then we went on that trip and we lost the first two games. We had no energy. They were so tired. And all I could think was, Shit. Those four points right there—would we have won those two games if I hadn’t done that? I don’t know. But they were tired. I beat them up and they were tired. We finished three points out of the playoffs. And I think right there is something I probably regret.”
But Savard made his point. And in the long run, it might have had the impact he wanted.
“I think down the road it helped,” he says. “I had to do this for myself. If I was going to coach these guys for a long time, they’ve got to see the other side of me. My personality is, if there’s a problem, we’ll fix it. We’ll solve it. I want to keep a happy atmosphere. That’s how my family is, that’s how we are, that’s who I am, and that’s just the way I wanted it. But when you’re coaching in that business, you have to have both sides. It was hard for me to do, but at the same time, it was the right thing.”
The end came suddenly for Savard. The hiring of Quenneville as a scout over the summer was a big red flag, and those close to Savard said he immediately started looking over his shoulder. The organization loved Savard but was basically looking for any reason to replace him with Quenneville, to kickstart the next phase of the team’s development. Savard had gotten the Blackhawks to commit to the Indian, but the Blackhawks didn’t want to commit to Savard much longer.
The Blackhawks opened with back-to-back 4–2 losses in New York and Washington, then lost 3–2 to Nashville in overtime at home. On October 15, Savard’s Blackhawks beat Gretzky’s Coyotes 4–1 for their first win of the season. It was Savard’s last game as an NHL coach.
As usual, Savard got to the rink around 6:00 the next morning, ready to compile a video of all the good things the Blackhawks did in the victory, to further instill them with the confidence that was never a problem for him as a player.
But at 6:30, his phone rang.
“I’m thinking, What the heck?” Savard recalls. “It was the secretary. She said, ‘Dale Tallon is here and he’d like to talk to you.’ Right there, I go, ‘Well, Dale’s here at 6:30, there’s got to be a problem.’”
It was a short conversation. Savard was “shook” by it, but stuck around to let his assistants know what had happened. The players took it hard. Kane was in tears.
“I wished everybody good luck,” Savard says. “I said, ‘I want you guys to keep plugging away here, because this is a good team.’”
At the very least, Savard got the last laugh on Gretzky.
“Wayne always brings up all those games when his Oilers beat us,” Savard says with a laugh. “But last time I saw him, I said, ‘The only Cup I won was the last Cup you were in [1993], and we won that. And just in case you forgot, the last game I coached was against you, and I won that, too.’”
After a brief vacation to clear his mind, Savard was surprised—and elated—to be kept in the fold as part of John McDonough’s new ambassador program. With the weight of the world off his shoulders, Savard still got to enjoy the Blackhawks’ rise as a part of the team, as an occasional presence in the dressing room. And as he hurries off to meet with the folks from American Express, Savard flashes a smile while the gaudy 2015 Stanley Cup ring he wears to wow the crowd shimmers in the fluorescent light of the United Center offices.
“It was a hard time for me, but it was a great time,” Savard says. “They did the right thing. Joel was the right guy. And I’m happy where I’m at. I tell John all the time. Every time I see him, I say, ‘Thanks, John.’”
“Now We’re in the NHL”
There was no flowery speech from Joel Quenneville on his first day on the job. No soothing words to players still reeling from Denis Savard’s firing. No comforting arm around the shoulder of a distraught Patrick Kane. No backward-chair rap sessions from the cool new teacher, going around the room and having everyone introduce themselves.
Quenneville isn’t flowery. He isn’t soothing. He’s not comforting. He is blunt-force trauma personified.
And so on his first day as Blackhawks coach, at his first practice, Quenneville summoned his wary players to the dry-erase board on the glass. And he made it very clear the Blackhawks weren’t in Kansas anymore.
“This is the only time we’re going to be here on a knee looking at this board,” Quenneville growled. “I’m going to explain the drills we’re doing, and we will do these drills every day. The only thing I ask is when you do a drill, you go 100 miles an hour. You go as fast as you can. And you pass the puck as hard as you can. That’s it. We’ll be short, we’ll be sweet.”
Quenneville told the bewildered players that there would be no traditional stretch around the center faceoff circle. He said there’d be no warmup drills. He said there’d be no wasted motion, no wasted effort, no wasted time.
“I’ve played,” he told them. “I know you’re here two hours before a practice. I know you’re here and you’re doing your workouts, you’re taking care of yourselves. So I just assume that when you go on the ice, you’re already warmed up and you’re ready. I’m not going to waste your time.”
At this point, Adam Burish leaned over to Patrick Sharp and grinned.
“Now we’re in the NHL,” he told Sharp. “This guy is an NHL coach. This is old-school NHL. This is awesome.”
A Joel Quenneville practic
e is a marvel in efficiency. Everyone is in constant motion. You’ll only work for 30-35 minutes, but your lungs will burn and your legs will ache and your heart will pump.
Savard was the ideal coach for a bunch of kids feeling their way through their first year or two in the NHL. But Quenneville was the ideal coach to take that raw talent—now brimming with confidence and excitement partly thanks to Savard—and channel it into a highly successful, highly professional team. Savard was working with kids. Quenneville treated them like adults.
“Some of the things I tried to get away with when Savy was the coach were shot down pretty quick by Joel,” Sharp says.
Joel Quenneville brought experience and a steady hand to the Blackhawks when he took over as head coach in 2008. Two years later, the Hawks were Stanley Cup champions.
In one of Quenneville’s first games with the Blackhawks, Sharp took a penalty. The faceoff was in the defensive zone, and Quenneville had given Sharp the signal that, once the penalty expired, he was to rush over to the bench for a change. But the Blackhawks were in transition as Sharp stepped out of the box, and he jumped into the rush to make it a 3-on-2, getting a shot off but not a goal. Sharp stayed on the ice for a full shift, then returned to the bench and to an earful of furious—and colorful—language from the new bench boss.
“I quickly knew things had changed,” Sharp says. “And that I’d better start doing what he said.”
