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Luke Richardson was fired as coach of the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday.

Anders Sorensen, the coach of Chicago’s American Hockey League affiliate in Rockford, has been named interim coach.

Richardson was 57-118-15 in three seasons with the Blackhawks.

Chicago is 8-16-2 this season, last in the NHL standings. They were 19-54-9 last season, finishing 31st and 26-49-7 in 2022-23, which was 30th.

“Today I made the difficult decision to move on from Luke as our head coach. We thank him for his efforts and contributions to the organization and our community,” Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson said. “As we have begun to take steps forward in our rebuilding process, we felt that the results did not match our expectations for a higher level of execution this season and ultimately came to the decision that a change was necessary. We wish Luke and his family all the best moving forward.”

The Blackhawks have lost four games in row and are 3-9-1 in their past 13 games, ranking 31st in goals per game (2.42), entering Thursday. They have qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs once in the past seven seasons.

“On behalf of the entire Blackhawks organization, I’d like to thank Luke for his dedication over the past three seasons,” Blackhawks chairman and CEO Danny Wirtz said. “I fully support Kyle’s decision in making this change as he continues to do what is needed to move our team forward. I have the utmost confidence in him and the rest of our Hockey Operations team as they begin their search for the next head coach of the Chicago Blackhawks.”

Richardson is the third NHL coach fired this season, joining Jim Montgomery (Boston Bruins on Nov. 19) and Drew Bannister (St. Louis Blues, Nov. 24).