The league-worst Chicago Blackhawks fired coach Luke Richardson on Thursday after three seasons.

Anders Sorensen, coach of the AHL Rockford IceHogs, was named interim head coach and will assume duties immediately. The Blackhawks have also made Mark Eaton, their assistant general manager overseeing player development, the interim coach in Rockford.

Sources told ESPN’s Emily Kaplan that Sorensen will coach the rest of the season and will be given an opportunity to get the full-time job, as the Blackhawks think very highly of him. The Blackhawks plan on conducting a full coaching search after the season.

Players in Rockford have praised Sorensen as a coach, with one player telling ESPN that he’s a “great communicator and teacher.”

Richardson, 55, had a 57-118-15 record after being hired to coach Chicago in 2022, while the Blackhawks were in a prolonged rebuild. He was in the last year of a three-year contract, with Chicago holding an option for a fourth season.

After 26 games this season, Chicago had a record of 8-16-2, the worst in the NHL. The Blackhawks were tied for 21st in team defense (3.15 goals against per game) and the second-worst offensive team in the league at 2.42 goals per game. Those offensive struggles impacted Connor Bedard, last season’s Rookie of the Year, who has just five goals in 26 games this season.

“As we have begun to take steps forward in our rebuilding process, we felt that the results did not match our expectations for a higher level of execution this season and ultimately came to the decision that a change was necessary,” Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson said. “We wish Luke and his family all the best moving forward.”

Blackhawks chairman and CEO Danny Wirtz said he fully supports Davidson’s decision and endorsed the management team’s search for the team’s next head coach.

The frustration this season has been notable within the Blackhawks, in particular with the 19-year-old Bedard. The No. 1 pick in the 2023 NHL draft — and marketed as a franchise savior in Chicago — Bedard had grown tired of finding silver linings in losses for a last-place club.

“We’re not just going to be happy that we stayed in a game. We’re all NHL players. That’s not the goal, you know? It’s frustrating,” he said in November. “Losing is not fun, so we’ve obviously got to figure it out.”

Two weeks ago, Bedard said there were “100 things” he felt he could change about his game as he was mired in a 12-game streak without a goal.

Richardson was criticized for scrambling his lines too often in search of the right mix. He raised some eyebrows around the NHL when he shifted Bedard, a natural center, to the wing and played him in more of a defensive role with forwards Jason Dickinson and Joey Anderson.

“We didn’t bring him here to be a checker,” Richardson said. “But just the way our team has a lack of scoring, we’re hunkering down on the defensive side until we get a little more confidence offensively back.”

Bedard, who was left off of Team Canada’s 4 Nations Face-Off roster this week, has four points in his past seven games.

Richardson also took criticism for the way he handled the benching of veteran Taylor Hall, a former league MVP now in his 15th NHL season. Hall was surprised by becoming a healthy scratch because the possibility of it hadn’t been communicated to him.

Richardson later admitted that Hall should have been given a heads-up.

“That could be part of my problem, too. Sometimes you give veterans a little bit more of a grace period,” Richardson said.

Richardson was hired in June 2022, replacing interim coach Derek King. He had been an assistant coach for the Montreal Canadiens and spent four seasons as head coach of the Ottawa Senators‘ AHL affiliate.

Sorensen is the fourth head coach under Davidson, two of them serving on an interim basis. He has amassed a 117-89-16-7 record in 229 career AHL games serving as head coach. The IceHogs have reached the playoffs in each of his three seasons serving as bench boss.

Previously, Sorensen was a development coach in Chicago and a bench coach for Södertälje SK of HockeyAllsvenskan in Sweden.

The Blackhawks have several of their top prospects, including Frank Nazar, Kevin Korchinski and Artem Levshyunov, playing in Rockford this season. They have been hesitant to call them up, preferring them to be better prepared in the AHL. However Nazar, who is second in AHL scoring with 24 points in 18 games, is expected to get a call up this season. The Blackhawks would prefer to keep Nazar in the NHL instead of shuttling him back and forth.

This is the third coaching change of the 2024-25 NHL season.

The Boston Bruins fired Jim Montgomery on Nov. 19, replacing him with interim coach Joe Sacco. When Montgomery became available, the St. Louis Blues fired Drew Bannister and hired Montgomery five days after his dismissal in Boston.

Team Canada general manager Don Sweeney indicated that Chicago Blackhawks star Connor Bedard is still in consideration for the 2026 Winter Olympics despite being snubbed from Canada’s NHL 4 Nations Face-Off roster this week.

Bedard, 19, was the NHL rookie of the year last season. He had dominating performances for Canada at the 2023 world juniors (23 points in seven games) and the 2024 IIHF world championships (5 goals in 10 games). That sparked speculation that Bedard would make the roster for the 4 Nations Face-Off, a four-team exhibition tournament that’s replacing the NHL All-Star Game this season, to better prepare him for the 2026 Olympic tournament in Italy.

But Bedard has struggled in his second NHL season, with five goals in 26 games after scoring 22 goals in 68 games as a rookie. He has 19 points for the Blackhawks.

Sweeney, who is the general manager of the Boston Bruins, said that Bedard is part of “the next wave of great players” for Canada but one who needs to gain experience before making the leap to the national team.

“It’s his second time around the league. There’s some challenges associated with that. He’s working through that, in a situation where he gets all the attention possible from the best players that he’s playing against each and every night,” said Sweeney. “So I think he’s living and breathing it right now and it’s only going to help him to continue to build his résumé, and we’re excited about that.”

Sweeney, who will be the assistant to GM Doug Armstrong for the Canadian men’s hockey Olympic team, and Team Canada coach Jon Cooper both expected Bedard would push for a roster spot in 2026.

They also said the 4 Nations Face-Off roster, which features just one player born after 1998, was built for this tournament rather than as a test run for the 2026 roster.

“We built this team to win the 4 Nations. The Olympics is still a year away. Are there players that are going to develop and take strides in that time? There’s no question,” said Cooper, who is the coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning. “Especially some of these younger players where your development continues. That’s just going to make decisions tougher.”

Sweeney said that’s why Team Canada had a “wider lens” in looking at players such as Bedard who might not be ready for the 4 Nations tournament but could make the cut in 2026.

“We wanted to identify players that are going to project out down the road. Players that might not necessarily be ready to push somebody out of a job that we felt had earned it at this point,” he said. “We’re going to have to continue to have those [players] stack up on top of each other in the next year and a half and make a really hard decision on several emerging players. We’re incredibly excited about them, but we couldn’t lose sight of the fact that we were building a team for February.”

It’s not unprecedented for Canada to leave a young phenom off its national team roster. Sidney Crosby was left off the Canadian Olympic team in 2006, when he was 18 years old, despite playing at a point-per-game pace as a rookie. Steven Stamkos didn’t make the 2010 Olympic team despite scoring 51 goals as a 19-year-old in his second NHL season.

Meanwhile, the player who finished second to Bedard in the rookie race last season — 22-year-old Minnesota Wild defenseman Brock Faber — made the cut for Team USA at the 4 Nations Face-Off.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Sabres coach Lindy Ruff ruled out defenseman Rasmus Dahlin against the Jets on Thursday night because of back spasms.

Ruff did not provide a timeline of how long Dahlin might be sidelined. He said he hopes it’s short term, “but you never know.”

Dahlin left early in the third period and did not return in a 5-4 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday in which the Sabres squandered a 4-0 lead and allowed four goals in the third period.

The injury, Ruff said, is related to the one Dahlin sustained the first day of training camp and forced him to miss a majority of the preseason. Dennis Gilbert is expected to be in the lineup in Dahlin’s place. The Sabres also recalled defenseman Ryan Johnson from AHL Rochester on Thursday.

Dahlin, the No. 1 pick in the 2018 draft, leads Buffalo defensemen and ranks third on the team with 19 points (6 goals, 13 assists). On Wednesday, Dahlin was named on Sweden’s roster for the NHL’s upcoming 4 Nations Face-Off tournament.

Injured Sabres defenseman Mattias Samuelsson and forward Jordan Greenway rejoined the team for practice Thursday. Samuelsson has been out of action since he sustained a lower-body injury Nov. 11 against the Montreal Canadiens. Greenway has been out with a midbody injury he sustained Nov. 14 against the St. Louis Blues.