CHICAGO (AP) – Joel Quenneville knew the deal. After three Stanley Cup titles and nine playoff appearances with the Chicago Blackhawks, the longtime coach is a big season for him.

"I only think we are in the winning business and we better win," Quenneville said on the first day of training camp.

Two months later, it was over.

The Blackhawks fired Quenneville on Tuesday, ending a wildly successful run back to the NHL after years of heartache.

"This is certainly a very difficult decision," general manager Stan Bowman said in a statement. "But I believe it is in the best interests of the Blackhawks organization, and we need to maximize the growth of our business at the same time.

"After much deliberation the last several days, with great respect to what Joel has meant to the Blackhawks, we knew we had to make a change."

Assistants Kevin Dineen and Ulf Samuelsson also were let go. Jeremy Colliton was hired as the head coach, and Barry Smith, 66, moved from Chicago's front office to the bench as an assistant coach.

Colliton moves from Chicago's American Hockey League affiliate in Rockford, Illinois, and is now the NHL's youngest head coach at 33. Blackhawks forward Chris Kunitz, defenseman Duncan Keith and goaltenders Corey Crawford and Cam Ward are older than Colliton, and defenseman Brent Seabrook also is 33.

"All of those with a strong belief in his possessions," Bowman said. "He has been a communicator, a leader, and a coach, and he knows the best way to grow and grow as a team."

The 60-year-old Quenneville had another year left on a three-year contract he signed in 2016 that pays him $ 6 million per year, second highest in the NHL behind Mike Babcock in Toronto.

He was the longest-tenured head coach in the NHL and the second coach fired in the Los Angeles Kings dismissed John Stevens on Sunday.

Whenever Quenneville wants to get back to work, he will likely have plenty of suitors.

The former NHL defenseman has 890 wins in 22 years as a coach with St. Louis, Colorado and Chicago. Scotty Bowman, Stan's father and a senior adviser with the Blackhawks, is the only man with more regular-season victories.

Quenneville took over the 2008-09 season, replacing Denis Savard after the Hall of Famer was let by general manager Dale Tallon. What followed was an unprecedented run for one of the NHL's Six Original Franchises.

Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Keith blossomed with Quenneville behind the bench, and the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup in 2010, 2013 and 2015. They also made it to the final conference in 2009 and 2014.

"His leadership during the Stanley Cup championships speaks for itself and it is meant to this organization," team president John McDonough said in a statement. "He will always be a significant member of the Blackhawks family."

The trouble for Quenneville began in Nashville in the first round of the 2017 playoffs after the Blackhawks finished with the best record in the Western Conference. Then they missed the playoffs completely last season for the first time in a decade.

After getting off to a 6-2-2 start this year, Chicago has dropped five in a row heading into Thursday's home game against Carolina. The power play, a persistent problem, ranked 27th in the NHL heading into Tuesday. The Blackhawks also allow an unseemly 3.73 goals per game.

Quenneville finishes with a 452-249-96 record with Chicago. He also went 76-52 in the playoffs with the Blackhawks for the best record in franchise history.

The dismissal turns up the pressure on Bowman, who has made a couple of questionable moves that helped hasten the Blackhawks' decline. He traded Artemi Panarin to Columbus and Teuvo Teravainen to Carolina in part because of salary-cap issues, and each player has put up big numbers with his new club.

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