Speculation: 2024-25 Coaching/Management/Ownership

Rhyagelle

Registered User
Apr 17, 2013
113
52
No matter how bad you play you still stay in the roster. Way to keep players accountable
 
Last edited:

Smirnov2Chistov

Fire Greg Cronin!
Jan 21, 2011
5,651
4,340
Massachusetts
Holy shitballs…… we are back talking about Eakins? Seriously? Let it go. Eakins Sucked. Cronin appears to be a bumbling idiot at times leading me to believe he probably sucks too. If the Ducks don’t show some good improvement, it shows Cronin does suck and PV should make another change.

Just goes to show that if there is little improvement during this season, it’s on the both of them.

Verbeek can’t construct a roster, and Cronin can’t coach properly
 

Hockey Duckie

Registered User
Jul 25, 2003
18,955
14,139
southern cal
You've twice refused to engage with my pointing out your "Cronin's top eight outscored Eakins' top six" argument is a completely illegitimate torturing of the data. Plenty of stats and facts, zero acknowledgment of any of them except for trying to clumsily co-opt the bottom six argument (after you'd initially dismissed the depth forwards entirely while discussing forward depth).

You've apparently failed to comprehend that my point in that post was that despite his individual effectiveness, Grant's return did not appreciably help Eakins. Also that if you're going to stake your argument on "actually missing Grant for 36 games was crippling to Eakins" you have to contend with Cronin not having Grant for all 82 games (he had a dude Eakins had the forward depth to keep in the AHL, instead).

And you actually have the nerve to claim anyone else doesn't like facts that ruin their narrative?

Talent quality depth a quite amiss in this argument. Cronin did have more top-6 talent and a huge makeover on defense. Are you admitting that Cronin didn't have more talent and talent depth at his disposal? That's what you are asking me to believe, which is completely facetious.

Cronin: GF = 204, GA = 295, pts = 59
Eakins: GF = 209, GA = 338, pts =58

Both teams had mass injuries. Both teams scored similarly. Cronin's defense was a massive upgrade. Yet, Cronin only produced one more point than the less talented Eakins team. Your agenda team says the main culprit is "injuries". Nothing more than that? Seriously? Eakins' team had more man games lost to injuries than Cronin's team, but Cronin's team does have "talent quality depth" to absorb some of those losses. And you are all crying about that?

The main culprit is Cronin's ES offense is a failure.

Ducks
SeasonGame SetES GFES GAES GD
2022-23Season
169​
250​
-81​
2023-24Season
148​
197​
-49​
-21​
-53​
32​

This is also supported by the eye test as we all fell asleep often during the Cronin games. Cronin's PK unit produced 12 shorties, which was 11 more than Eakins' PK unit - again, identifying more talent available for Cronin.

All this points to Eakins was able to get more out of his less talented team than Cronin did with his vastly improved defense.

==========
Zegras v Grant

Zegras
DateGame setGamesGAPtsppg.+/-Team WLOTLPtsPts %
2023 - 24Total
31​
6​
9​
15​
0.484​
-1​
12​
17​
2​
26​
0.419​
Oct to Nov1 to 12
12​
1​
1​
2​
0.167​
-4​
7​
5​
0​
14​
0.583​
Dec to Jan13 to 20
8​
3​
2​
5​
0.625​
-1​
2​
5​
1​
5​
0.313​
Mar to Apr21 to 31
11​
2​
6​
8​
0.727​
4​
3​
7​
1​
7​
0.318​

Zegras improved his scoring later into the season, but was nowhere near effective in helping the team generate more points.

Grant
DateGame setGamesGAPtsppg.+/-Team WLOTLPtsPts %
2022-23Total
46​
5​
13​
18​
0.391​
-4​
10​
23​
9​
29​
0.315​
Oct to Nov1 to 11
11​
1​
1​
2​
0.182​
-4​
3​
7​
1​
7​
0.318​
Nov to Dec12 to 15
4​
1​
0​
1​
0.250​
-2​
0​
0​
2​
2​
0.250​
Feb to Apr16 to 46
31​
3​
12​
15​
0.484​
2​
7​
18​
6​
20​
0.323​

Apparently, Grant is a part of earning the loser point often for Eakins. Grant similarly compares to Zegras' impact on the ice under Cronin. To say Grant means nothing to the Eakins team is saying Zegras means nothing to the Cronin team. Both contribute to generating team points for the team.

=====

Conclusion: Is the team to be judged on coach or the players? Overall, Eakins figured out how to earn points with far less talent. If you're relying on players available, then that speaks volumes of a coach's inability to adapt. Cronin ran into that offensive inability to adapt often and reiterated it in post-game interviews with, "I don't know what to say."

Here's a wonderful exercise: If we swapped rosters between the two coaches, would we end up with the same result? I don't believe so. I think Eakins pulls away with far more points with Cronin's roster even with the mass injuries.
 

lwvs84

Registered User
Jan 25, 2003
4,369
3,053
Los Angeles, CA
Last season, Cronin was trying to teach the team something they never had to do under Eakins... play defense. It's tough learning a new system and a new third of the ice they never played in. That was with 3 key players (?) missing part or all of training camp (Zegras, Drysdale, and Killorn were all out to start the year?). Then the team never really got chemistry with someone always hurt and often more than one player. It was a tough season for everyone and hopefully a learning experience for Cronin in his first year as an NHL coach. If there is little or no improvement this year, then I'll be concerned.
 

duckpuck

Registered User
Sponsor
Jul 10, 2007
2,587
2,720
Eakins has a long track record of sucking. He has coached in the NHL for parts of 6 years and the results have always been bad, particularly his defensive scheme. It really is not up for debate except among people who cannot ever admit they were wrong. And just to be clear, I was supportive of Eakins for most of his ducks tenure, so I arguably was one of he wrong people, though I'm not in denial about his record. For the record, he seems like a really good guy/mentor and a good assistant or AHL coach.

The jury is still out on Cronin. There is no reason to compare his one year with a young/injured/not super talented roster to Eakins 6 year track record. It could be that Cronin is a bad coach, maybe worse than Eakins. But we can't draw any rational conclusions by comparing his first year to Eakins last. The only reason to make that type of argument is very weak indirect defense of Eakins which at this point is totally unjustified.
 

Firequacker

used wall of text! It's not very effective...
Jun 3, 2022
330
662
Talent quality depth a quite amiss in this argument. Cronin did have more top-6 talent and a huge makeover on defense. Are you admitting that Cronin didn't have more talent and talent depth at his disposal? That's what you are asking me to believe, which is completely facetious.

Cronin: GF = 204, GA = 295, pts = 59
Eakins: GF = 209, GA = 338, pts =58

Both teams had mass injuries. Both teams scored similarly. Cronin's defense was a massive upgrade. Yet, Cronin only produced one more point than the less talented Eakins team. Your agenda team says the main culprit is "injuries". Nothing more than that? Seriously? Eakins' team had more man games lost to injuries than Cronin's team, but Cronin's team does have "talent quality depth" to absorb some of those losses. And you are all crying about that?

The main culprit is Cronin's ES offense is a failure.

Ducks
SeasonGame SetES GFES GAES GD
2022-23Season
169​
250​
-81​
2023-24Season
148​
197​
-49​
-21​
-53​
32​

This is also supported by the eye test as we all fell asleep often during the Cronin games. Cronin's PK unit produced 12 shorties, which was 11 more than Eakins' PK unit - again, identifying more talent available for Cronin.

All this points to Eakins was able to get more out of his less talented team than Cronin did with his vastly improved defense.

==========
Zegras v Grant

Zegras
DateGame setGamesGAPtsppg.+/-Team WLOTLPtsPts %
2023 - 24Total
31​
6​
9​
15​
0.484​
-1​
12​
17​
2​
26​
0.419​
Oct to Nov1 to 12
12​
1​
1​
2​
0.167​
-4​
7​
5​
0​
14​
0.583​
Dec to Jan13 to 20
8​
3​
2​
5​
0.625​
-1​
2​
5​
1​
5​
0.313​
Mar to Apr21 to 31
11​
2​
6​
8​
0.727​
4​
3​
7​
1​
7​
0.318​

Zegras improved his scoring later into the season, but was nowhere near effective in helping the team generate more points.

Grant
DateGame setGamesGAPtsppg.+/-Team WLOTLPtsPts %
2022-23Total
46​
5​
13​
18​
0.391​
-4​
10​
23​
9​
29​
0.315​
Oct to Nov1 to 11
11​
1​
1​
2​
0.182​
-4​
3​
7​
1​
7​
0.318​
Nov to Dec12 to 15
4​
1​
0​
1​
0.250​
-2​
0​
0​
2​
2​
0.250​
Feb to Apr16 to 46
31​
3​
12​
15​
0.484​
2​
7​
18​
6​
20​
0.323​

Apparently, Grant is a part of earning the loser point often for Eakins. Grant similarly compares to Zegras' impact on the ice under Cronin. To say Grant means nothing to the Eakins team is saying Zegras means nothing to the Cronin team. Both contribute to generating team points for the team.

=====

Conclusion: Is the team to be judged on coach or the players? Overall, Eakins figured out how to earn points with far less talent. If you're relying on players available, then that speaks volumes of a coach's inability to adapt. Cronin ran into that offensive inability to adapt often and reiterated it in post-game interviews with, "I don't know what to say."

Here's a wonderful exercise: If we swapped rosters between the two coaches, would we end up with the same result? I don't believe so. I think Eakins pulls away with far more points with Cronin's roster even with the mass injuries.
Okay, so first off, the unsubstantiated accusations of pro-Cronin agenda really do nothing to help make your case. Personally, I've been consistent in my dislike of him, and I'm not the only one in this very thread who's expressed doubt in him despite disagreeing with you. Thinking he deserves one season where his top eight doesn't miss an average of 18 games apiece before we fire him into the sun (whilst fully expecting we're gonna need to fire him into the sun) is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the guy.

For the rest, I'm gonna collapse it because most everyone is tired of this topic.
Second off, I've stipulated previously on this topic that of course Cronin had a better defense. Again, look at the Injury Viz charts you've cited. Notice how Eakins' injuries were much more spread out between positions while Cronin's were nearly all to the forwards. Accordingly, Cronin's improved defense absorbed its few injuries and put up a greatly improved GA, while his gutted forward corps put up a worse GF. There's really nothing surprising there.

You asked: "Are you admitting that Cronin didn't have more talent and talent depth at his disposal? That's what you are asking me to believe, which is completely facetious."
I'm saying Cronin had inferior forward depth. He couldn't consistently deploy his top of the lineup talent due to injury, and his bottom six sucked. So he had a top-heavy roster that kept taking injuries to its top players.
And they did keep taking injuries. Eakins' top talent (your cited top six) averaged 76 games per player. Cronin's top talent (your cited top eight) averaged 63.75 games per player. This is without even getting into the stretches where McTavish and Killorn played injured to a degree that visibly detracted from their game.

I'll go through it more thoroughly. You've cited several times that Cronin's top eight played 54 more games and scored 30 more points than Eakins' top six, thus proving Cronin's superior depth. Here's the problem with that:
—30 more points from two extra players is 15 points per "top talent". This immediately indicates something went wrong somewhere.
—To produce a valid comparison, you have to compare like to like. Top six against top six, or top eight against top eight.
—If you go by 5v5 TOI/GP, Eakins' top eight would add Comtois and Jones, who provided 38 points in 133 games. Alternately, Cronin's top six would lose Henrique and Strome, removing 83 points and 139 games. Both these comfortably clear the 30/54 differential, leaving Eakins' unit with more points in many more GP.
—If you'd rather go by total TOI/GP (not how I'd do it but, for the sake of argument) Eakins' top eight would instead add Silfverberg and Grant, who provided 44 points in 127 games. Cronin's top six would lose Strome and McTavish, removing 83 points and 143 games. Once again, well over the bar.
—If you want to really compare like with like, removing Killorn and Carlsson removes 65 points and 118 games.
—Interestingly, Cronin's top eight had a ppg of 0.62. Eakins' top six had a ppg of 0.63. If you pull Killorn and Carlsson, Eakins' top six had a ppg of 0.64 under Cronin. Practically the same, despite your assertions that Eakins could obviously do more with equivalent talent.
—In either of the Eakins top eight units cited (or any mix of the four players involved), the Cronin top eight has a far superior scoring rate (better offensive talent), but the total production was inferior because they were injured so much (not at his disposal).
—I should mention here that Cronin did have two bottom six players who scored more than 15 points. His problem was he also had multiple roster regulars who scored less than 5. Eakins had somewhere between zero and two (depending how you classify Regenda, who was obviously not a regular but did play as many games as Meyers, and whether you count McGinn's points as a Penguin.) Counting both, Eakins' sub-5-point regulars played 29 games combined. Cronin's sub-5-point regulars played 151.
Cronin had better forward talent. He did not have the forward talent depth to mitigate the injuries to that better forward talent.

One last thing on this subject: "Cronin's PK unit produced 12 shorties, which was 11 more than Eakins' PK unit - again, identifying more talent available for Cronin."
Once again, you've got to look more deeply at the statistics. Every forward with so much as a single PK point under Cronin was also on Eakins' roster. Of them, only Carrick and Leason played appreciably more games under Cronin (and Leason was available to Eakins the entire season, he just got lots of press box time. Vatrano played 81 games under Eakins and 82 under Cronin, he's not who anyone is talking about here.) Six defensemen had a single PK point each, half of which were secondary assists, indicating the bulk of those twelve shorthanded goals were forward-driven. By the same forwards Eakins had.
This discrepancy is about the PK system much more than it's about the available talent. That's an issue with a different coach.

Third, I have legitimately no idea what you're trying to prove with the Zegras and Grant charts? There's no correlation between either player's ppg and the team's point share, then you say Grant made a similar on-ice impact to Zegras based on...? The similar pts% in their last segment?
Okay, sure. If you're going to talk about points percentage you're missing a pretty key detail: the games they didn't play. Those numbers paint a much different picture of their impacts:

2022-23GPWLOTLPtsPts%
With Grant4610239290.315
Without Grant3613243290.403

2023-24GPWLOTLPtsPts%
With Zegras3112172260.419
Without Zegras5115333330.323

Yes, points percentage definitely supports your argument here.

Thing is, I don't believe for a second that either of these players was personally responsible for that kind of points percentage swing. I'm not posting them to argue you're wrong about Grant, I'm posting them to argue you're wrong about points percentage being useful in this context.
What it is, is a category error. Team record, in any form, is not a relevant individual stat. Not even for goalies (though that's another topic), especially not for skaters.
A single win or loss is the confluence of relevant statistics for all 38 guys on the ice. Plus coaching. Plus intangibles. External factors. Every game introduces many new variables to replace many of the old ones. You can't simply reduce wins or losses to any one person, whether player or coach, unless all other variables are the same. They're rarely going to even be close.

This is also why you pretty much can't fully isolate an individual player's impact. I like to cite the fancy stats at times, not because I think they're the be-all end-all (they're definitely not), but because there are so many factors to individual performance I prefer having more information to less. Which brings me back to the point that Grant's fancy stats were all comparatively strong upon his return from the second injury... but the team still sucked and couldn't win. It's the same as how your PPG chart showed no correlation between the individual and team stat. Hockey is complex, individual stats frequently don't correlate with team record, so it's really not as simple as "having this one player means we would definitely win more games!"

That doesn't mean an individual player can never make the difference, and I'm not saying that a healthy Grant couldn't have maybe swung Eakins an extra game or two. He very well could have (and I wouldn't bet against it, again, I'm a big Grant fan). The point is that there's no guarantee there. He demonstrably could not carry the team to a greater record all by himself, so you have to start factoring in other variables. How many games do you expect the 4C to win singlehandedly? Perhaps he'd be in the position to make the difference a time or two. Perhaps not. It'd be up to more than him.
Whereas Zegras scored 48 even strength points last year, 19 of them goals. The year before that, 44 even strength points, 14 of which were goals. Imagine the dent his healthy production could've made in Cronin's ES differential? The ES differential that you identify as the main culprit? It's not necessarily a guarantee of more wins either, that depends on the distribution, but the chances sure seem higher. But you want us to believe it's a fact that Zegras' ES offensive talent would have been no more impactful than the guy Eakins was back to misdeploying on that godforsaken shutdown line until he got hurt.

There's a pretty well-known Twitter meme about how if you say "I like pancakes" there, someone else will respond "so you hate waffles?" That's basically what you do on this topic. Someone says "Cronin had a lot of injuries" and you come rolling in with "so Eakins didn't have injuries?" No. Nobody said that. Nobody was talking about Eakins until you brought him up.
The weirdest thing is that you ended by pointing out just a couple of the perfectly solid criticisms of Cronin. He couldn't seem to adapt. His postgame comments and throwing the team under the bus were an embarrassment. If you tell me all the signs point to him being a bad coach, I will agree 100% and have said the same thing! But then you undermine your own argument by dragging your Eakins agenda into it.

As for your wonderful exercise... I for one wouldn't bet on either of them, but I am curious about something. You say "If you're relying on players available, then that speaks volumes of a coach's inability to adapt." And yet, you've argued many times that Eakins was a good coach because he had the team in a playoff position in 2021-22, until... he was deprived of several talented players.
Every coach is going to rely on their talent to some degree, and every team has a line where they've lost too much talent to be competitive. A good coach can move that line further, and I don't think Cronin moved it particularly far. But the idea that Eakins was clearly better at it just isn't supported by facts.
TLDR: Yes, the forward talent depth was worse, also team points are not an individual statistic.

(Honestly I'm tired of this topic too, but eh, I knew what I was getting into.)
 

Anaheim4ever

Registered User
Jun 15, 2017
9,261
5,875
Eakins has a long track record of sucking. He has coached in the NHL for parts of 6 years and the results have always been bad, particularly his defensive scheme. It really is not up for debate except among people who cannot ever admit they were wrong. And just to be clear, I was supportive of Eakins for most of his ducks tenure, so I arguably was one of he wrong people, though I'm not in denial about his record. For the record, he seems like a really good guy/mentor and a good assistant or AHL coach.

The jury is still out on Cronin. There is no reason to compare his one year with a young/injured/not super talented roster to Eakins 6 year track record. It could be that Cronin is a bad coach, maybe worse than Eakins. But we can't draw any rational conclusions by comparing his first year to Eakins last. The only reason to make that type of argument is very weak indirect defense of Eakins which at this point is totally unjustified.
Eakins is a really nice guy and well liked players coach but he was not effective in coaching a NHL winning style but maybe he'd be successful in a assistant coaching role but it seems no team offered him that and went to Europe.
He was good at keeping people level headed and positive during the obvious tanking years.
 
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KelVarnsen

Registered User
May 2, 2010
10,722
4,900
Mission Viejo
Coaches possibly on the hot seat this year:

“There has been some friction between Greg Cronin and I think some of the Anaheim Ducks players, so he would be a name I would watch” - Frank Seravalli

I know it’s Seravalli so take it for what it’s worth which more than likely is not much.
 

Ducks DVM

sowcufucakky
Jun 6, 2010
54,171
33,070
Long Beach, CA
Coaches possibly on the hot seat this year:

“There has been some friction between Greg Cronin and I think some of the Anaheim Ducks players, so he would be a name I would watch” - Frank Seravalli

I know it’s Seravalli so take it for what it’s worth which more than likely is not much.
Gibson and Zegras, probably
 

Mr Rogers

Registered User
Jul 11, 2010
20,923
10,532
Calgary
There were a few of us concerned with Cronin as far back as last summer but were kinda getting shot down by “you have no evidence/you don’t know” type of tropes. Really interesting but not surprising that this is surfacing. Frank is a troublemaker but doesn’t mean he necessarily reports false info.
 
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Dr Johnny Fever

Eggplant and Teal
Apr 11, 2012
22,098
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Lower Left Coast
I wouldn’t be surprised if Cronin only had a two year contract. But I’d be extremely surprised if Henry let Verbeek fire a coach still under contract. I’m pretty sure Cronin is quite secure through all of next season.
 

Dryish

Nonplussed
Dec 14, 2015
1,753
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I wouldn’t be surprised if Cronin only had a two year contract. But I’d be extremely surprised if Henry let Verbeek fire a coach still under contract. I’m pretty sure Cronin is quite secure through all of next season.
Didn't Henry make massive bank with Broadcom's value jumping way up recently? He may be fine with a little more spending all of a sudden.

Not necessarily, given that minimizing expenditure is more of a philosophy among the truly wealthy than personal preference, but you never know.
 
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anezthes

Registered User
Mar 20, 2014
4,776
3,174
I'm shocked. Nay, flabbergasted!

Who could've known that an old-school coach, who apparently sets different standards for players, would, you know, rub people the wrong way?
 
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Rasp

Registered User
Apr 9, 2019
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I'm shocked. Nay, flabbergasted!

Who could've known that an old-school coach, who apparently sets different standards for players, would, you know, rub people the wrong way?
He probably should have dispensed hugs at the end of games to better connect with the players
 

Anaheim4ever

Registered User
Jun 15, 2017
9,261
5,875
He probably should have dispensed hugs at the end of games to better connect with the players
You mean like Eakins giving hugs after they just lost a game by score of 7 to 0 lol. I want a coach that is gonna get them to face adversity better and not start using crayons on a coloring book in a corner in between periods when they are trailing in a game. I thought the game where the Refs tried to rig it against Anaheim, ejected Cronin and the players responded by winning the game by coming from behind despite all the attempts the Refs made to stop them is something that never would have happened under Eakins.

Another year older Carlsson, McTavish, Mintyukov, Cutter, Zegras, Zellweger will be interesting to see how well they do when healthy.
 
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Kalv

Slava Ukraini
Mar 29, 2009
24,158
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Serevalli said "I think" btw.
But that's not hard to start speculation on. Most of us already have been wondering the same since the ~middle-ish of last season.
 

dracom

Registered User
Dec 22, 2015
13,774
9,990
Vancouver, WA
There were a few of us concerned with Cronin as far back as last summer but were kinda getting shot down by “you have no evidence/you don’t know” type of tropes. Really interesting but not surprising that this is surfacing. Frank is a troublemaker but doesn’t mean he necessarily reports false info.
"Gibson will never play a game for the Ducks again"

yes, he does make false reports, especially with us.
 
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Dr Johnny Fever

Eggplant and Teal
Apr 11, 2012
22,098
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Lower Left Coast
Here's an opinion...

If Cronin doesn't show progress in his ability to work with these guys such that they show true development next year (and that doesn't have to be achieved by attaining a certain level of standings points) , it is going to go down as a serious stain on Verbeek's record for making such a bad hire at such a very critical time. We have a lot of good young talent. It's imperative that we develop them properly to get the ship righted.
 

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