McDonough never lost faith in Coach Q, proud of Hawks

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When the Chicago Blackhawks went through their awful nine-game winless streak through late January and early February, the sky was falling through the world of fandom and knee-jerk reactionary sports blogs.

Fire this guy, fire that guy, trade somebody, do something now. And as unpleasant as it all was, the team president said he had faith that the guys in charge, and the guys playing for them, would get through it.

Blackhawks president John McDonough said there was never a thought of getting rid of coach Joel Quenneville or trading anyone during the losing streak. And hes proud of how the Blackhawks came out of that mess to be back in the playoff race.

Absolutely not, McDonough said. We have great confidence in Joel. Hes been through these things before and won two Stanley Cups (one as an assistant with the Colorado Avalanche). Ive been in sports for 32 years; weve seen these losing streaks. Theyre not a lot of fun to go through but good teams figure a way to come out of them, which we did. Im proud of the organization. Theres no panic button here.

McDonough credited Joel with his work, as well as Stan Bowman. The general managers move to acquire defenseman Johnny Oduya at the trade deadline has paid big dividends, balancing a defense corps and giving it another needed veteran presence.

And McDonoughs also impressed with how the Blackhawks have fared without Jonathan Toews; the team is now 11-5-2 without their captain.

Im really proud of how they responded. Its a challenge to be without your captain for close to 20 games, but it speaks to the depth of the organization, the job Joel and the staff has done, the pickup that Stan made with Johnny Oduya. We still have a little ways to go, want to get that playoff berth nailed down ad hopefully that happens soon.

The playoffs are close to the Blackhawks grasp. McDonough said there was no doubt the team was going to stay the course, losing streak or not. And even if the Blackhawks go on a short playoff run, he doesnt foresee changes.

The knee-jerk reactions remain well outside the front-office walls.

Weve all been through this before. We have a very good team from top to bottom and we have one of the premiere coaches, McDonough said. Joel Quenneville has more wins than any active NHL coach. Were proud of what hes done here in Chicago, but we all had conversations on how to get out of it. The time and effort everyone put into that is really laudable.

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