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Anders Sorensen

Blackhawks Officially Hire Michael Peca, Retain Anders Sorensen And Jimmy Waite

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New Chicago Blackhawks head coach Jeff Blashill had his introductory press conference early on Tuesday. During interviews, he shared with media that the Blackhawks will retain Anders Sorensen as an assistant coach and Jimmy Waite as a goalie coach, per Charlie Roumeliotis of WGN Radio. Blashill also shared that Chicago has hired former NHL forward Michael Peca as an assistant coach. The team later confirmed Sorensen and Peca’s roles in a press release.

This news most notably captures the next step in Peca’s growing coaching career. The 51-year-old spent nine of his 14 pro seasons in New York – captaining the Buffalo Sabres for four seasons and New York Islanders for two. He returned to the Empire State after retiring from the NHL, and took up the mantle as the general manager and head coach of the Buffalo Jr. Sabres in 2011-12. Peca stayed in that role for eight years before deciding to return to the pros in the 2020-21 season. His first step was a Development Coach role with the Washington Capitals, but Peca moved to an assistant role with the AHL’s Rochester Americans in 2021-22. He spent two years with Rochester, then stepped up to an assistant role with the New York Rangers over the last two seasons. Now, Peca will take his coaching talents away from the East coast for the first time in his career by joining a budding coaching staff in Chicago.

Peca will join like company in Anders Sorensen, who spent the better part of a decade coaching dominant rosters around Chicago youth hockey. Sorensen intercut those AAA-coaching roles with four years as an assistant coach in the HockeyAllsvenskan, Sweden’s second-tier pro league, and joined the Blackhawks’ staff as a Development Coach in the 2014-15 season. He stuck in the role for four seasons before stepping up to an assistant role with the Rockford IceHogs in 2018-19. Sorensen was promoted to the head coach role two seasons later, then earned another promotion to the NHL head coaching role last year. He led the Blackhawks to a 17-30-9 record – but showed enough strength to earn an assistant coach role with Team Sweden at this year’s World Championship, and retain an assistant role in Chicago.

Through the mix of two assistant coaching hires, fans shouldn’t forget about the continued impact of former Blackhawks goaltender Jimmy Waite – who will retain his role through a third coaching change. Waite just wrapped up his 10th season as Chicago’s goaltending coach. His tenure started off with star Corey Crawford, and will continue a decade later with budding star Spencer Knight. Waite was originally drafted eighth-overall in the 1987 NHL Draft. He played in 106 games and 11 seasons in the NHL, and recorded a career-long .871 save percentage and 28-41-12 record. He also spent 233 games and eight seasons in the IHL, where he set a .909 save percentage. Waite will be in welcome company serving under Blashill – a former NCAA Division-1 goaltender who started his career as a goalie coach.

Blackhawks Hire Jeff Blashill, Michael Peca

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11:12 a.m.: Chicago had made Blashill’s hiring official. They’re also bringing in Rangers assistant Michael Peca to serve in the same role on Blashill’s staff, Arthur Staple of The Athletic reports. Peca, 51, had been working under Peter Laviolette in New York for the past two years. He’s also worked as a development coach for the Capitals and an assistant coach for AHL Rochester. Sorensen will be on Blashill’s staff as an assistant as expected, while Penguins assistant Mike Vellucci is a strong candidate for the third and final assistant job on Blashill’s bench, per David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period.

10:26 a.m.: The Blackhawks will announce Lightning assistant Jeff Blashill as their next head coach later today, per Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff.

Blashill was the only name to be publicly linked to Chicago’s vacancy throughout their search aside from University of Denver bench boss David Carle, who opted to stay in his NCAA role. The Hawks have had nearly a month to explore other options after Carle withdrew his name from consideration for the position, and while there were some other unknown candidates they were considering as recently as a few days ago, Blashill has been positioned as the favorite for the role ever since his name first emerged.

Chicago will be Blashill’s second stop as an NHL head coach. His first, a seven-year run as head coach of the Red Wings, was a tough assignment as the team slowly entered a full teardown with him at the helm. That understandably led to a poor record – a 204-261-72 (.447) mark in the regular season with just one playoff series and one playoff win to his name, coming in Game 3 of the 2016 first round against the Lightning in his first season behind the Detroit bench.

There are legitimate reasons for optimism that Blashill can be a more effective head man with a Blackhawks club in the latter stages of their rebuild rather than with a Detroit club in the early stages. Since being let go by the Wings in 2022, he’s served as Jon Cooper’s top assistant in Tampa for the last three years. He also put together a strong minor-league resume with Detroit’s AHL affiliate in Grand Rapids before being promoted to the top role there, guiding the Griffins to a Calder Cup championship in 2013 and being named the league’s Coach of the Year the following season.

Blashill will take over for interim head coach Anders Sorensen, who was behind the Chicago bench for most of this year after the team dismissed Luke Richardson in early December. Sorensen, who coached the team to a 17-30-9 (.384) record in the season’s final 56 games, is expected to remain with the Blackhawks in some capacity.

The 51-year-old Blashill will likely have a significantly bolstered roster to manage come opening night compared to how the Hawks are beginning the offseason. Not only do they have the No. 3 overall pick in this year’s draft that could potentially slot into Blashill’s first-year lineup, they’re expected to be one of the most aggressive clubs in free agency this summer with nearly $31MM in cap space and no high-priced pending RFAs to re-sign.

While Blashill may not be the person behind Chicago’s bench when they’re a consistent playoff team again, he’ll at least be tasked with helping the club exit its years-long rebuild. He’ll do with a stacked group of under-25 players that includes forwards Connor Bedard, Oliver Moore, and Frank Nazar, defensemen Artyom Levshunov, Sam Rinzel, and Alex Vlasic, as well as goaltender Spencer Knight.

With Chicago making Blashill’s appointment set in stone, only three head coaching vacancies remain: the Bruins, Kraken, and Penguins.

Image courtesy of Kim Klement-Imagn Images.

Anders Sorensen Likely To Remain On Blackhawks’ Staff

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The Blackhawks have been linked to Jeff Blashill for their head coaching vacancy in the last few weeks and are widely expected to make that hiring official in the coming days. That begged questions about the future of Anders Sorensen, who finished the season as interim head coach after Chicago fired Luke Richardson in the early going. He’ll be remaining with the club, David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reports, although whether that’s as an assistant on Blashill’s staff or back where he started 2024-25 in AHL Rockford remains to be seen.

It’s unclear if Sorensen was ever a legitimate candidate to have his interim tag removed. The Blackhawks kept their search rather tight-lipped over the last couple of months, with Blashill and University of Denver coach David Carle’s names the only ones ever firmly connected to their vacancy.

He’s definitely no stranger to the organization. The 50-year-old Swede has served with the Blackhawks in some capacity dating back to 2014, first as a development coach with the NHL and AHL clubs before being tabbed as an assistant coach for Rockford in 2018-19. He was promoted to serve as Rockford’s head coach in November of 2021 and held the role until Richardson’s firing last December.

There’s been a slow but clear upward trajectory for him in the organization. It makes sense that, assuming he wasn’t getting many calls from other teams about their head coach vacancies, he’d be happy to stick around with a club, either in Chicago or Rockford, that he’s obviously quite comfortable with.

Chicago finished the season with a 17-30-9 (.384) record under Sorensen, just marginally better than the 8-16-2 (.346) mark they started the season with under Richardson. Their new hire will be their fifth coach in as many years, including interim bench bosses.

Blackhawks Notes: James, Bedard, Sörensen, Brossoit

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It seems unlikely that the Chicago Blackhawks will sign one of their collegiate prospects to an entry-level deal. Relayed by Scott Powers of The Athletic, Blackhawks General Manager Kyle Davidson shared in the team’s end-of-season press availability that prospect Dominic James will likely pursue other options for his professional career and become an unrestricted free agent on August 15th.

Normally, a former sixth-round draft pick becoming a collegiate free agent wouldn’t be newsworthy. However, James has established himself as a particularly capable two-way winger in the NCAA, possessing a defensive and offensive maturity that NHL teams would be interested in.

Although last year was mired by injury, James scored 30 goals and 77 points in 111 contests for the University of Minnesota-Duluth over the past four campaigns. He’s unlikely to earn a full-time role in the NHL out of training camp next year, but cleaner paths toward the NHL should emerge for him this offseason.

Other notes from Chicago:

  • Although he’s ineligible for unrestricted free agency for some time, the Blackhawks can sign Connor Bedard to a long-term extension on July 1st. It doesn’t sound like he’ll have any issues if that came to pass, as Ben Pope of The Chicago Sun-Times quoted Bedard saying, “I love it here, and I have a great relationship with Kyle and everyone… I know that I want to be here for a long time.” It wouldn’t be surprising, especially considering the past several years, to see a former first-overall selection sign an extension relatively quickly with the club that drafted him.
  • After another disappointing campaign, it’s understandable that Chicago would want to explore different coaching options this summer. Still, that doesn’t mean interim head coach Anders Sörensen wants to leave the organization. Pope reported that Sörensen is open to taking another role within the organization. Before being named the team’s interim head coach on December 5th, he served as head coach for the AHL’s Rockford IceHogs since 2022-23.
  • Despite being signed to a two-year, $6.6MM contract last summer, netminder Laurent Brossoit didn’t appear in a game for the Blackhawks this season due to injury. Still lacking clarity regarding the seriousness of his injury, Pope shared that Chicago was hopeful Brossoit “may” be healthy for next season, and could battle for a roster spot out of training camp. Regardless of Brossoit’s status, the Blackhawks already have their tandem for next year in Spencer Knight and Arvid Söderblom.

Evening Notes: Ferraro, Rutta, Sorensen, Ekman-Larsson, McCabe

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The San Jose Sharks will swap out a pair of injured defensemen through the end of the season. Top defender Mario Ferraro has been ruled out for the remainder of the season, while depth option Jan Rutta will be activated from injured reserve for Friday night’s game, per Jason Gregor of Sports-1440. Ferraro suffered a lower-body injury in Wednesday’s overtime loss to the Minnesota Wild. Rutta was also facing a lower-body injury, and has missed San Jose’s last 27 games.

Ferraro’s season will come to a close on the heels of a streak of heavy utilization. He’s appeared in at least 24 minutes of play in six of his last 10 games. That mark raised his season-long average to 21:24 through 78 games. Ferraro recorded five goals, 17 points, and a minus-25 with those minutes. He also led the Sharks defense with 125 blocked shots and 150 hits on the year. His minus-25 was also Ferraro’s highest plus-minus since the 2021-22 seaosn. He had another year of a hard-fought role, and the defense will feel the weight of his absence through their final four games.

Rutta has handled far less of a role through his healthy games this season. He’s recorded eight points, a minus-six, and 28 penalty minutes in 51 games while rotating through a role on San Jose’s bottom pair. His average of 16:57 in ice time is the fewest of any Sharks defender with more than 30 games played. Nonetheless, Rutta will slot back into a role on the Sharks’ bottom two pairings with Ferraro out.

Other notes from around the league:

  • Chicago Blackhawks head coach Anders Sorensen has been named an assistant coach for Team Sweden at the upcoming World Championship per Chris Johnston of The Athletic. It will be his first time coaching in an international tournament at any level. In fact, Sorensen didn’t play in any international tournaments during his short-lived playing career either – though his pro journey did span tenures in Sweden, France, and Norway. Sorensen has grown through the ranks of Chicago hockey, coaching prominent youth club the Chicago Mission for many years before graduating to the AHL’s Rockford IceHogs’ head coaching role, then assuming Chicago’s head coach role this season. Sorensen has set a 15-30-8 record in 53 games behind the Blackhawks’ bench this season.
  • Johnston also reported that Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson will miss Saturday’s game with a day-to-day injury. The Leafs will also be without Jake McCabe per Jonas Siegel of The Athletic, though Siegel adds that McCabe is nearing a return. He has missed the last three games. Both defenders have served strong roles with the Leafs this season, and sit right next to each other across many stats. Ekman-Larsson has scored 29 points in 77 games, while McCabe has managed 23 points in 66 games. Both defenders average 21 minutes of ice time, and round out Toronto’s left-hand side alongside Morgan Rielly. The Leafs will watch for the return of both options closely as they prepare for a long playoff run, after clinching a spot on April 2nd.

Blackhawks Notes: Donato, Soderstrom, Sorensen

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On Friday, the Blackhawks rekindled discussions about a possible contract extension with pending unrestricted free agent forward Ryan Donato and while an agreement wasn’t reached, Chicago elected to hold onto him anyway.  Scott Powers of The Athletic reports (subscription link) that the deal that the team put on the table was a three-year offer worth somewhere around $4MM per season.  That would effectively double his current price tag while the term is low enough that he’d be off the books when some of their younger core will be heading toward pricey second contracts.  The 28-year-old has a career-best 23 goals and 25 assists through 62 games this season despite not even averaging 16 minutes a night.  He’ll now have to weigh if he can do better than that on the open market or if he’s better off staying in a place he knows he fits with.

More from Chicago:

  • Also from Powers’ piece, he notes that the Blackhawks will look at signing defenseman Victor Soderstrom for next season. Acquired as part of the trade that saw Chicago pick up Shea Weber’s contract earlier this week, the 24-year-old returned to play in Sweden this season and has fared quite well, tallying 36 points in 48 games with Brynas.  Soderstrom has 53 career NHL games under his belt with Phoenix (who drafted him 11th overall in 2019) and 170 outings in the AHL.  But if Chicago views him as more of a depth option on a two-way deal, Soderstrom could elect to stay and play a prominent role at home.
  • During his post-deadline press conference (video link), GM Kyle Davidson noted that with the deadline now gone, they will turn their focus to a decision on their head coach. Anders Sorensen is the interim bench boss following the early-season dismissal of Luke Richardson but the team doesn’t have an inclination of what route they intend to go with Sorensen just yet.  The team has played to a 12-19-7 record, good for a .408 points percentage compared to the .346 they were at before the change.

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