Blackhawks name Derek King, Kevin Dean as assistant coaches

The Chicago Blackhawks have started rounding out the coaching staff of new head coach Luke Richardson by naming some of the assistants on Monday morning.

Former Blackhawks interim coach Derek King and former Blackhawks defenseman Kevin Dean were named as assistant coaches, while two assistants from the prior regime were retained: Jimmy Waite as goaltending coach and Matt Meacham as video coach.

The 55-year-old King remains behind the Chicago bench after taking over as interim head coach on Nov. 6, 2021, ending that season with a 27-33-10 record. Before that King was in multiple roles with the AHL’s Rockford IceHogs and Toronto Marlies since his lengthy playing career ended.

Dean’s name should be familiar to Blackhawks fans of a certain age, as he played 96 games in Chicago during the tail-end of a 7-year NHL career that started with Dean being in the fifth round (86th overall) in the 1987 NHL Draft.

Photo by Graig Abel/Getty Images

Dean was drafted out of the Culver Military Academy, roughly a two-hour drive from Chicago in northern Indiana, before he played collegiately at New Hampshire. Dean then bounced between the ECHL, AHL and IHL before making his NHL debut during the 1994-95 season. He was traded to Chicago on Feb. 8, 2000, along with a second-round pick and forward Derek Plante in exchange for veteran defensemen Sylvain Cote and Dave Manson.

Since retiring in 2002, Dean has been an ECHL head coach, AHL head coach and spent the last six years as an assistant coach with the Boston Bruins.

Waite has been with the Blackhawks since the 2014-15 season after a playing career of over two decades that included 58 games with the Blackhawks, while Meacham is about to enter his ninth season as the video coach.