I’ll keep this brief. As delighted as I’m with on-ice performance of the Florida Panthers, the off-ice stuff has me sick to stomach.
Kyle Beach spoke last night in a powerful interview and what he had to say was pretty damning… and disgusting – a $2 million fine for the Chicago Blackhawks organization is simply not enough. Closer to home, having Joel Quenneville behind the bench last night was not a good look for the Panthers organization, in my opinion, and if they were ok with that decision, then Quenneville should have taken questions after the game instead of general manager Bill Zito. Personally, I would like to see the Panthers move on from Quenneville immediately, and maybe we can take from Zito doing last night’s post-gamer, that’s what’s going to happen today. You can agree or disagree with me, that’s fine. There is a lot of he said, he said involved in this and we’ll likely never know for sure, who knew exactly what and when exactly they knew it. Based on what we do know, I just can’t be convinced that Quenneville knew as little as he’s letting on and wasn’t at least partially complicit in the way this was handled (or in reality, not handled) and that’s enough for me to want the Panthers to make a change. In addition to Beach, others in the Blackhawks organization were assaulted by Brad Aldrich, and after leaving the organization he was finally arrested for and pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct in 2013. Blackhawks’ brass, possibly including Quenneville, knew of this guy’s predatory behavior in 2010, so after the all damage he did in Chicago, he was given three years to roam free and continue to prey. In light of that, whether the team decides to pull the trigger of its own accord or his fate is decided in his meeting today with Gary Bettman, I just can’t get behind the idea of Quenneville remaining the head coach of this team any longer.