CHICAGO -- Joel Quenneville being fired as coach of the Chicago Blackhawks after 11 seasons Tuesday came as a shock to his players, especially those who won three Stanley Cup championships under him.

"I think there's a lot of different emotions that you kind of go through when something like that happens," said forward Patrick Kane, a key member of the Cup-winning teams in 2010, 2013 and 2015. "It was a tough day for everyone."

Jeremy Colliton, at 33 the youngest coach in the League, will make his NHL coaching debut when the Blackhawks host the Carolina Hurricanes at United Center on Thursday (8:30 p.m. ET; NBCSCH, FS-CR, NHL.TV). It will be the first game Chicago will play without Quenneville since Oct. 16, 2008.

"The guy breeds winning," Kane said. "Coming in as a young player, I think there's lessons you probably thought you knew at the time that you had to learn along the way and he wasn't afraid to teach them to you, whether it was playing both ends of the ice or not being afraid to sit you if you made a mistake, take a bad penalty, things like that.

"The one thing that just sticks out is his passion and his excitement to try and win hockey games, so that will definitely be a void that we'll try to fill in here."

Quenneville, 60, was 452-249-96 with Chicago. His 890 wins in 22 seasons with the St. Louis Blues, Colorado Avalanche and Blackhawks are second in NHL history behind Scotty Bowman (1,244). Quenneville has coached 1,636 NHL games, also second to Bowman (2,141).

But following five straight losses to fall to 6-6-3 this season, two points behind the Avalanche for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference, Chicago fired Quenneville, the second-winningest coach in Blackhawks history behind Billy Reay (516).

"He means the world to me," defenseman Brent Seabrook said of Quenneville. "Ten years, three Stanley Cups, what was I, 23, 24, when I came here? He taught me a lot as a young man, as a young player. Little things he always harped on that I'll remember for the rest of my life, for sure.

"Just the way he was with us, how he treated us professionally and as individuals. He was always a guy who liked to have some fun and what-not but gave us our space and allowed us to be players. It was just, you know, a tough day today, and [I'll] cherish the days and memories and all the stuff we did together."

Goalie Corey Crawford, who won the Cup twice under Quenneville, said he was caught unaware when he arrived at practice Tuesday.

"I was pretty surprised this morning," Crawford said. "We spent a lot of time here with Joel as the coach, and the team has had three championships, obviously. You never want to see a guy leave, including the coaches.

"We've been through so much together. I think for me, personally, he's had a ton of confidence in me from the start, and it's hard to hear that news. In this business, those things happen sometimes. It seems like coaches are maybe the first ones to go most of the time. Like I said, it's just hard to see him go."