Daily Faceoff Show: Collition giving whiteboard players a bad look

There are few teams in the league that have a more difficult start to the season than the Chicago Blackhawks.

They stumbled out of the gates for a horrendous 0-5-1 start to the season and were beaten Sunday night against the visiting Detroit Red Wings 6-3. This launched Chicago into record territory with 360: 57 to start a season without a head start.

Newly acquired Seth Jones struggled 0-10 scoring 5×5 goals on the ice, but a little late-game moment caught the hockey world’s attention.

Chicago called for a time out with just over seven minutes left in the third, and head coach Jeremy Colliton was seen handing the Chicago players a whiteboard. It’s far from anything common, and it’s certainly something that caught the attention of Daily Faceoff’s Bryce Salvador.

“It’s not common what it looked like and that’s what it boiled down to, perception. Optically, when things aren’t going well in their season… then you have Colliton handing the board over to the players, ”Salvador said. « It’s one thing if you hold the board and give a player a marker… but it really looked like he was giving it to the players and saying ‘I have no more solutions for you guys.’

« I wouldn’t read too much from a player’s point of view because everyone in this dressing room is going to be like ‘hey, we’re all in the same boat – we’re not letting anybody dry’.

« But optically, it doesn’t look good and you saw Twitter immediately jump all over the place here. »

Chicago’s tough start saw them fall to the New Jersey Devils, Pittsburgh Penguins, New York Islanders, Vancouver Canucks and Detroit Red Wings and things aren’t going to get any easier.

They wrapped up a four-game home game Wednesday against the incredibly desperate Toronto Maple Leafs, before a two-game road trip against the Carolina Hurricanes and St. Louis Blues.

Zach Laing is Chief News Officer and Senior Columnist for the Nation Network. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or contactable by email at [email protected]