Blackhawk Coach Luke Richardson Follows Through With More "Heat" in Practice

Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson followed through with more acid Monday after dishing out some verbal heat to his players on Saturday during a lousy start in San Jose.

Lactic acid, that is. 

Practice at the Fifth Third Arena in Chicago concluded with a mix of good old-fashioned, thigh-burning sideboards and line sprints with hard stops. A "bag skate" finish.

"A little bit to grab their attention," Richardson said.

The usually calm Blackhawks coach became furious with his players late in a horrific first period against the Sharks, the only team with a worse record than his. Chicago was outplayed and outworked, falling behind 2-0 after 20 minutes. San Jose upped the lead to 4-0 by just 1:24 into the second two goals by Fabian Zetterlund off breakdowns.

The Blackhawks came back to beat the Sharks 5-4 when Seth Jones scored his second goal of the game 18 seconds into overtime. Chicago rebounded to win from a four-goal deficit for the first time since October 2009. See story in link.

Rugged Player, Thoughtful Coach

Richardson, who turns 55 on Tuesday, is less punishing as a coach than he was as a rugged defenseman over 21 NHL seasons. But he wanted to hammer home a point.

For the most part, the Blackhawks played poorly on a three-game trip to California.

"I know we skipped out of the (San Jose) game, luckily on top," Richardson said. "Great on them that they were able to do that, but go back two games. We really weren't happy in our performance in two games (a 6-2 loss at Los Angeles and a 4-0 flop at Anaheim) and that's just not professional enough for me.

"You have to do it every day," he added of Monday's practice drills. "Sometimes, that's the way the game is played, up and down the ice, or over and back. It said to them that it's really unacceptable for the standard that we want to have for our work ethics. So we worked in practice today."  See the following video.

Richardson, in his second year behind Chicago's bench, has picked his spots to show anger to his rebuilding team. There's a blend of teaching, firmness and occasionally, fire.

"Luke, he's a very kind guy," forward Ryan Donato said on Saturday after leading the comeback with a goal and two assists. "When he needs to be, he can definitely get us going in the right direction if he needs to. And he definitely did for us this game"

Donato added, "It was a little scary."

Picks His Spots

Richardson didn't wait until after the first period on Saturday. He called his players in close for a "chat" on the bench late in the frame."

"It just go to the point where... and it didn't get much better right away," Richardson said. "I didn't want to wait to the end of the first because it could trickle and get worse.

"You can't do that too often," he added. "It just falls on deaf ears after a while.  It think what you need to do is make them realize that it is up to them to be ready.

"But when we feel like we've done out job of preparing them, and we're (the players) are doing the exact opposite of what our pregame message was and our video of the other team was... that's just unprofessional and it's unacceptable."

After he lit into his players at the SAP Center, Richardson said he backed off and let his assistants refine the message. 

There was added reinforcement on Monday, though. See the following video.

Richardson might have let loose and fought 130-plus times as a player, but he mindful of words as a coach.

"I think you've got to realize you have 20 different personalities on the bench," he said. "Sometimes one sentence is going to mean 20 different things to different people."

Nothing was nuanced on Saturday though.

"I was pretty clear," Richardson said. "I think they all got the same message. When you're trying to get 20 people to connect, especially five of them on the ice at the same time, you've gotta' be really clear."