Bye bye Jamie

I have been working on my analysis on the Hawks defensive depth and then again, like yesterday's news on Jimmy Waite, more interesting news breaks. Originally reported  in a blog I now have it from reliable sources that Jamie Kompon will be leaving the Blackhawks. At 2:00 tomorrow the Portland Winterhawks if the WHL will be announcing their new head coach. That new head coach, barring any major complications, will be Jamie Kompon. Now I am seeing this pitched as promotion for Jamie and yes it is a move from assistant coach to head coach. But really now, going from assistant coach of an elite NHL team to the the head coach of a team in the Western Hockey League (WHL). While the Winterhawks are an elite team in the WHL and a strong feeder team to the NHL, its not the NHL, baby. And their logo while similar to that of the Blackhawks lacks the vibrant color contrasts of the Chicago Blackhawks. (OK, I just had to take a cheap shot at their logo.) So Jamie moves from asst coach in LA, winning a Stanley cup, to the Chicago Blackhawks, winning a Stanley Cup and now to the WHL.Jamie probably was not going up any further in the NHL and this was the only way for him to get a job at the top.

Many of those who know me also know that I was never a fan of Kompon. Let's go back to the 2011-12 season. The LA Kings won the Stanley cup with one of the strongest power plays in the league. The Hawk between 2010 and 2012 had one of the worst power plays. Enter Jamie Kompon. The savior of the Hawks power play? Under Jamie, the power play went from ugh, oh my god, to OK, to ugh and around and around. Never really showing much improvement and nowhere near the Kings power play. I was also frustrated when Jamie would be charting up a play late in the game only to have the Hawks fail in the waning minutes of a game. In fact I would dread Jamie grabbing a white board and and erasable marker. I have put Jamie in the same category as Khabibulin: "Waste of money." Now he is gone and will soon be forgotten.

I am guessing that the Hawks did not have too much notice abut this change and therefore it will take some time for them to find a suitable replacement. But I am sure they will be looking for someone that can run a decent power play. And I am confident that whoever that will be will do a better job for the team. From my perspective, this is good for the Blackhawks.