BLOG: King Getting Up to Speed Ahead of First Game as Interim Head Coach

The Derek King era is officially underway for the Blackhawks.
Named interim head coach on Saturday, the 54-year-old coach took the ice on Sunday for morning skate at the United Center with his team for the very first time. As the head coach in Rockford for the last three years, there's some familiarity with the younger players on Chicago's roster, but also a relationship to build with the established veterans.
Without much turnaround time ahead of the night's game against the Predators, much of Sunday morning was spent simply with coach and players alike getting up to speed.
"It's really just getting to know these guys. Even though we're at camps and we get to see the faces walking around, we're not really on the ice with them," Kind explained in his first press conference. "I thought today went well. I got to chat with a lot of the guys, had a couple of one-on-ones. The big challenge is just getting these guys up and running and familiar with me and what I'm looking for out of them and take it day by day. It's not an easy situation, but thankful to the Wirtz family and Kyle and everyone here for giving me an opportunity."

PREGAME LINKS
PREVIEW: CHI vs. NSH
BLOG: Inside the Design of Fleury's Native American Heritage Mask
RELEASE: Colliton Relieved of Coaching Duties
"It wasn't necessarily one thing, one event, one game. It's a lot of feel," interim general manager Kyle Davidson explained of the decision to make the coaching change. "The results are what they are: not good enough. That goes without saying. I believe the message that was being delivered wasn't translating to on-ice, either production or changes or fixing of mistakes that kept occurring over and over again. The losses aren't necessarily the issue, it's sometimes the way you lose that shows a change needs to be made. It was an accumulation and a general feel for how the response was being shown once the puck dropped."
The transition will undoubtedly be a process. The systems, King said, won't change for his first game in charge, but will likely evolve as he's able to spend more practice time on the ice with his new group and taking feedback from the players on what has been working and what hasn't.
King will be behind the Blackhawks bench for the remainder of the season, Davidson said, with a permanent head coach to be appointed in the offseason. With a veteran NHL coach by his side in assistant Marc Crawford, the duo will largely work together to guide the team through the remaining 70 games. But the new voice from outside the current team was crucial in the decision-making process for Davidson, and a driving factor behind King's appointment.
"He's huge support," Kind said. "I told him, 'I'm going to lean on you a lot' and we're going to work well together."
While the road to a playoff spot is a steep climb over the remainder of the year, there's still a lot that can be gleaned from the season overall as the organization builds towards the future.
"Right now, we're 1-9-2. You find out if you're a playoff team in April and let's be fully honest, the math is not in our favor right now to get to that point," Davidson said. "But no season is ever lost because you're always going to be able to learn something. You're always going to be able to continue your evaluation process. This is a new era now. Where we go from here will be based on the evaluation that started when I took the job and continues now. There's a great opportunity for these players to have a blank slate with Derek, both individually and collectively, and I think we're going to learn a lot, I'm going to learn a lot, of what we see over the next weeks and months and we can decide what direction we want to take at that point."
"The biggest thing for me is the accountability," King said of leading the team. "Go out there, work hard, play the game right -- don't cheat it -- and we'll be fine. If we don't do that, the accountability's going to kick in, and you're going to hear from me."
Watch Sunday's full press conference in the videos below: