I understand the dislike for Cronin. I’m not the biggest fan of the guy either but I think some of the sentiment on this board is over the top.
This has all come to a head lately based on comments by Spittin’ Chiclets, about as unreliable as they come. Yes I know they’ve at times had scoops but this isn’t Friedman or Lebrun saying the locker room is miserable. It’s podcasters.
This team is improving which is exactly what Cronin was hired to do. Does that come with an element of tough love and being an asshole at times? Maybe. But maybe just maybe that’s what this team needed and continues to need.
I’m not saying Cronin is the guy for when this team is ready to compete for a Stanley Cup - he probably isn’t. But disregarding improvement of the team as a whole, which is what he was brought here to do, is shortsighted in my opinion.
I think the confusion about Cronin is some of us are looking at it as a two season perspective as opposed to viewing Cronin for this season alone.
Last year, Cronin was gifted with a far better roster that included a revamp to the blueline. His team finished one point better than Eakins' club the previous season. The mass majority on here were still in the honeymoon stage with Cronin by giving many excuses why the team was not better than Eakins' club. When the season started and we were meandering, the report about Lyubushkin's time here conflated with recalling Cronin was hands off for the last 20 games of the previous season and the inept scoring despite being healthy woke the mass majority.
Cronin lost me last year b/c I identified how weak we were offensively at 5v5 despite vastly improving our GA, but I also know Verbeek loved what Cronin did last year. There was no way Verbeek would get rid of Cronin this season. When the offense didn't show up this season, I didn't overreact b/c I knew this was what our offense was last year. Our first 13 games were pathetic because we were running back the same scheme from last season. Finally, Cronin made changes to his system at ES/5v5. What took so long to change?
One aspect that Cronin could control that I thought he could improve was being a more disciplined team. With fewer TSH, then we would also have fewer Goals Against (GA). Cronin has done that this season while our PK was struggling in those in the first half of the season. Asst coach Thompson made changes to produce a significant improvement in our past seven games with the PK going 18/19 (
94.7% PK eff). I don't attribute the PP or PK to Cronin b/c he isn't in charge of those units, just like Eakins wasn't in charge of the special teams units before.
I still don't think Cronin has made major improvements despite the recent change in the system. We are relying on great goaltending and individual players to step up. IMO, the team is improving despite Cronin.
In the splits above, we see when we have great goaltending and our shot differential remains high in the negatives. Without the great netminding, we are pretty useless as seen between Nov 3 - Nov 8.
The one change I do notice with the increase in our offense is the involvement of our defense. I still contend that individual play is what is propelling the offense within the new defensive system b/c a different d-man shows up on the scoresheet per game. Just for comparison, Fowler hit career highs in points in two consecutive seasons under Eakins. That is the standard I have for our offensive production and it is not at that level. I would love to see Fowler in this new offensive system to have a better comparison b/c Fowler has been injured before the implementation of the new changes.
- Defensive offensive production
- First 13 games: 4g + 9a = 13 points and -7 rating
- Last 10 games: 7g + 17a = 24 points and +13 rating
I want to add caution with our recent 10-game upswing. Seven of those games were against sub-.500 teams. We have improved that much to be the "best of the worst". Despite our 23 points, we are only ahead of four teams.
Again, I want to reiterate that many don't like Cronin because we include last year as part of our criticism. Half of us don't believe Cronin won't be fired in-season, to which I'm part of that crowd. Most of us agree that Cronin shouldn't be here next season.
