Defense
Quenneville is a former defenseman himself, so he knows what the position needs to do. Now, as a player, he was not the best ever. His stats leave something to be desired, but he knows what defenders need to be doing after playing on so many bad teams.
Quenneville had the misfortune of spending most of his career with the expansion Colorado Rockies and then some very bad Hartford Whalers teams. Back then, expansion teams always stunk for years and Hartford was never that great, especially in the mid-to-late 80’s. So, you can give him a pass for those plus/minus stats. It all helped mold him into a good coach, though.
During his time with the Blues, they never finished lower than the middle half of the league in goals allowed. During his best seasons, the Blues were top five in the NHL in goals allowed.
With the Blackhawks, Quenneville kept that going. His teams were regularly some of the better teams in goals allowed. 2011-12 and 2017-18 were the only years that Quenneville’s teams finished in the bottom third in goals allowed. They rebounded in 2012-13 to be best in the league and 2017-18 was the only time in Quenneville’s career that any of his teams finished sub-.500, as mentioned.
He does not always have the best of players in his second and third pairings, as we saw with his Blues teams, but he gets them to do their job. That would be huge for this current group of Blues players.
There is talent there, but they all seem to want to do different things rather than play a style or system. I fully believe that someone with Quenneville’s pedigree and talent could whip this current defensive group into shape or, at least, give good input as to who to bring in.