Speculation: 2024-25 Coaching/Management/Ownership

[70sSanO]

The Cronin vs Eakins is a lot like the Titanic vs the Lusitania.

Neither is a qualified NHL coach. I personally like Eakins more, and think he was better for the young prospects.

In terms of winning, I think we have a better chance of winning, the lottery that is, with Cronin. This is despite Eakins having netted 2 top 5’s and barely missing with a 6th. Mighty impressive over a 4 year career.

But I think Cronin will deliver perennial top 5’s with his only limitation being age. In the process he will make the Ducks one of the hardest teams to watch in the NHL. And whatever flicker of hope is held by the fans will be extinguished.

John

 

[mightyquack]

The most annoying thing on HFDucks in the last 2 years has been Eakins being shoehorned into every f***ing thread. Almost tempted to have his name banned on this forum.

Eakins is a terrible NHL coach, and Cronin is shaping up to be just as bad an NHL coach at this point in time. The end.

 

[Mr Rogers]

The most annoying thing on HFDucks in the last 2 years has been Eakins being shoehorned into every f***ing thread. Almost tempted to have his name banned on this forum.

Eakins is a terrible NHL coach, and Cronin is shaping up to be just as bad an NHL coach at this point in time. The end.

Pretty much.

Also let’s not characterize Eakins as some offensive coaching genius.

 

[Ducks DVM]

I would like to be entertained reliably. I would like hope, as my secondary goal. It’s been years since I had either.

 

[ohcomeonref]

The most annoying thing on HFDucks in the last 2 years has been Eakins being shoehorned into every f***ing thread. Almost tempted to have his name banned on this forum.

Eakins is a terrible NHL coach, and Cronin is shaping up to be just as bad an NHL coach at this point in time. The end.

The only true positive that sticks out for me is Eakins had Zegras firing offensively.

 

[anezthes]

The most annoying thing on HFDucks in the last 2 years has been Eakins being shoehorned into every f***ing thread. Almost tempted to have his name banned on this forum.

Eakins is a terrible NHL coach, and Cronin is shaping up to be just as bad an NHL coach at this point in time. The end.

 

[McDonald19]

The one thing I gave Cronin credit for is getting guys like Leason to hit. Now Leason is back to no-contact hockey.

 

[McDonald19]

Whatever Cronin has them doing isn’t working.

Killorn 8 GP zero goals
Zegras 8 GP zero goals
McTavish 8 GP zero goals
Gauthier 8 GP zero goals
Fabbri 8 GP one goal
McGinn 8 GP one goal
Vatrano 7 GP zero goals
Leason 7 GP zero goals
Lundestrom 6 GP one goal

Note: I’m not counting empty net goals for this.

Terry has been the lone forward to meet or exceed expectations. Leo and Strome have also been “ok”.

 

[70sSanO]

Eakins is coaching Adler Mannheim in Germany. I’m not sure if he speaks German. Maybe it doesn’t matter if the players understand him.

John

 

[robbieboy3686]

The one thing I gave Cronin credit for is getting guys like Leason to hit. Now Leason is back to no-contact hockey.

And he has been benched since.

 

[MCB]

Is there a world where we are allowed to think both Eakins and Cronin are bad coaches for our team? Because they are both terrible, its like arguing over who came in last and who came in second to last.
Yay! One sucks slightly more than the other!

 

[Hamilton Bulldogs]

And he has been benched since

Leason needs some sort of advisor.

He’d be an NHL regular if he hit everything that moved. Nobody needs a soft big man with some goal scoring upside. A hard hitting big man with a goal scoring upside is another thing entirely.

 

[The Midnight Burrito]

Leason played above his depth for a time but he’s kind of emblematic of the mismatch between the way PV wants the team to play and the players he supplies his coaches. Leason doesn’t hit. He’s not physical, it’s not his nature. He needs to play a game that he’s not comfortable playing in order to play here. The same is true for half the roster. Z needs to be aggressive defensively, MacT needs to be in front of the net at all times, Leo needs to win defensive zone draws. That’s not the team! PV wants some other team than the one he built! Cronin, I’m not a huge fan but I think he’s being a good soldier here for PV.

 

[Reveille1984]

Whatever Cronin has them doing isn’t working.

Killorn 8 GP zero goals
Zegras 8 GP zero goals
McTavish 8 GP zero goals
Gauthier 8 GP zero goals
Fabbri 8 GP one goal
McGinn 8 GP one goal
Vatrano 7 GP zero goals
Leason 7 GP zero goals
Lundestrom 6 GP one goal

Note: I’m not counting empty net goals for this.

Terry has been the lone forward to meet or exceed expectations. Leo and Strome have also been “ok”.

There really have been very few positives to speak of thus far, which is probably the most concerning thing. We're about 10% into the season, and THREE forwards have more than one goal. Having such a young team be this bad as well as this dull to watch really is quite the feat.

Outside of Leo/Minty having some good moments, Dostal carrying us on his back, and Terry/Strome getting off to a good start, everyone else has been basically below average to liquid garbage tier.

 

[Johnnyduck]

Here’s a wild and crazy thought, “Todd McLellan“

 

[Smirnov2Chistov]

I’ve never understood the infatuation with Leason. Guy is Logan Shaw vibes of vanilla

Here’s a wild and crazy thought, “Todd McLellan“

I would roll with it

 

[Mr Rogers]

Here’s a wild and crazy thought, “Todd McLellan“

Probably would be solid at this stage. I don't love him in the playoffs but he can coach offense and he can also adapt. He was an offensive coach in SJ and Edmonton but was able to work with defensive-minded roster with LA.

I think he's a pretty innovative coach and would identify things we are doing wrong or not doing at all.

Also it would be really interesting to talk to Ken Hitchcock about the Ducks, i bet he could summarize everything they're doing wrong very succinctly. Pat should hire him as a consultant.

 

[Johnnyduck]

I like Todd because I believe he can develop talent.

 

[Kalv]

We look easy to play against. Heck, the SOG category alone shows we're easy to play against.

Hard for our offensive talent to flourish when we have the puck only for a few seconds before we lose it in a dump&chase/cycle.

Me no likey this

 

[MMC]

This is a perfectly fine idea in theory, but it's not that simple, right? The players we're talking about acquiring are still in their prime (or they're very good older veterans). The window we're talking about is basically the last 18 months - after the 2023 trade deadline - because there was no way Verbeek was going to acquire another good player before securing a shot at a top-3 pick in the 2023 draft. And I agree with Verbeek on that. If you don't, that's fine, but I think drafting a potential star was way too important to jeopardize it by adding too many good veterans too soon.

The trade we're making would involve the Ducks trading second round draft picks or B level prospects. Maybe a late 1st acquired in a separate trade. No rebuilding GM on earth would trade their own #1 draft pick unless they were 100% sure the team was going to take a step out of the bottom 8.

Then you have to find a trade partner. No good team is going to want to trade one of those types of players for draft picks or B prospects, since those players are generally important to their contention. So now you're looking at trading with other bad/rebuilding teams. That severely limits the supply, because if those teams had a lot of the players we want, they wouldn't be bad.

All that to say, I don't think you're wrong, but I also don't think there's a ready supply of trade chips or trade partners that make this easy. It's Verbeek's job to do hard things, and so perhaps he should have worked harder at something like this. But it's also possible that he did and was shut down at every turn.

We could probably have acquired the type of player you want by getting rid of Zegras. How would we have reacted to that?

And even if they can pull it off, no guarantees it works out the way people want it to. Look at what happened over in LA, two big trades for Fiala and Dubois and Dubois has already been dumped and Fiala appears to be wearing out his welcome as well. At the cost of a 1st, 2nd, Vilardi, Faber, and more. Ottawa is another team that recently did this with the trades for Debrincat and Chychrun. Both guys are no longer there.

 

[HanSolo]

that's the problem with the organization as a whole and has been for awhile. they rather force every player to be a two-way forward/defenseman. any kind of offensive instinct from a player gets squashed within a couple years. this team will never go anywhere if they don't understand they can't keep changing every player to be some a certain type of defensive specialist player but instead they should be nurturing the offensive skills a player has and elevating them. Hell, I can point this all the way back to Fowler. he should have just been a puck moving offensive oriented defensemen; instead they try to turn him into a #1 shutdown defensive defenseman that has to carry bad partners nearly his whole career.

To be fair, in today's NHL, to play in a top 6 you need to at least be somewhat competent defensively because of the match up game a top 6 player inherently has to play. So I don't personally mind that improvements are being attempted but we don't seem to have development personnel in place who are capable of fostering our team's offensive gifts while passively building up defensive responsibility.

 

[Static]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1852048258144833725

Embracing low event hockey. Yuck!

 

[cheesymc]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1852048258144833725

Embracing low event hockey. Yuck!

Whatever it takes to show improvement... It hasn't been about fan enjoyment the past half dozen seasons anyhow...

 

[JAHV]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1852048258144833725

Embracing low event hockey. Yuck!

I don't think this has anything to do with low event or high event hockey. This is just saying how good the team has been at preventing goals as compared to the scoring chances they're giving up (the y-axis) vs how good they are at scoring as compared to the scoring chances they generate (x-axis). This is essentially PDO on a graph.

The Ducks have been very good at preventing goals despite giving up a lot of scoring chances, which is why they're low on the y-axis (thanks, Dostal!). They've been below average at finishing the scoring chances they do generate (thanks, Killorn!).