Speculation: 2024-25 Coaching/Management/Ownership

[70sSanO]

Thr

The Pick for Nick turned into Sidorov

I wasn’t talking about the pick we got, I was talking about Verbeek picking up Johnston to fill Deslauriers’ role.

John

 

[HanSolo]

They kind of are though, just not as fast as everyone is demanding. Much improved of late.

Much is a stretch. For some guys it's been going well, for others not much has changed, and for others still it's been bad.

Good:

Gauthier. He's been playing faster and has cut down on his mistakes in a big way. Only thing in need of immediate work is better execution defensively and better finish on his volume shooting.

Zellweger: I think this just comes down to confidence, individual dedication, and tenacity. His defense is still inconsistent because of his size and likely always will be but he's been, on the whole, the best puck mover on the team by quite a bit. I just couldn't tell you how much of that is the development staff and how much is his own natural ability.

Lacombe: playing with more poise and confidence has led to improved defensive play with some remaining warts and much better offensive play. Development staff and coaches probably helped.

Dostal: Cronin has nothing to do with coaching goalies. The goalie coaching staff might as well be a different department.

Meh

Zegras: no question the team has helped mold him into a more complete player but it's come at the expense of his offensive confidence, dynamism, creativity and risk taking. I don't think this is too unlike when Fowler got his mandate to focus on responsible defensive play. A lot of people credit the Doan hit for the change in his dynamism and confidence but I think it was both. In any case, the team seems to have neglected fostering his strengths while working on his weaknesses. Can he still be a good and useful player as is? Of course. Can he be a more complete player and put up 60-80 points annually? I'm starting to have my doubts and that goes right to the coaching staff failing to find a way to balance 200 foot responsibility with the elements of his game that made him so promising.

Lundestrom: he's such a weird player to evaluate. He brings solid skating and above average defense to the bottom 6 but while we can basically write off any hope that he can be a second line quality player, his defense hasn't been strong enough to offset the lack of offense. It's exciting when he gets a counter rush on the penalty kill but past that, there's not much else to write home about and he's been on the team for a while now.

Helleson: don't get me wrong, he's been a pleasant surprise but most of his development came from San Diego. Too early to say if he's made much improvement at the NHL level so I leave him at meh. You can't really credit Cronin and his NHL staff for where Helleson is at, that's the point.

Bad:

McTavish: yeah he's skating better and yeah he's starting to produce but he still does so many things are just glaringly and overwhelmingly stupid. There are two possibilities here: 1) no one is giving him guidance or helping him when he makes mistakes so he keeps making them because he seems to play more on instinct than with measurable hockey IQ or 2) he's just not a very smart hockey player and the coaching staff is still utilizing him as though it's just a phase instead of finding a way to deploy him where he's not required to have high hockey IQ. Long way of saying he shouldn't be a center and a pivot for his line if he can't be relied on to make the right decisions with the puck on his stick. He keeps regressing and it's hard to imagine that this coaching staff and its piss poor systems isn't at least a bit responsible.

Mintyukov: I think the kid has some confidence issues right now. We've all seen how good he can look when he's on his game. But a lot of that was from when he first started his career. To be well off that mark this many games later is seriously troubling. He's getting worse defensively, he's too safe offensively, and he's having his minutes slashed as a result. I don't know what needs to be done to turn this around and it's partially on the player but it doesn't seem like the coaches are helping him through it. It seems to me, more likely, that he's getting minimal instruction and getting playing time reduced when he makes mistakes. I don't think this is conducive towards improvement but I don't know what's going on behind the scenes. In any case, he's regressed dramatically and has stagnated at that point of regression. Can't exactly give flowers to the development staff for that.

Leo: this is another weird situation. The difference between Mac and Leo in terms of mistake volume is a lot of the mistakes Mac makes leaves you wondering "what the f*** was he thinking? Why would he do that." With Leo, the plays he's attempting and failing on at least make sense and you can see what he was attempting and he usually fails either because he's not strong enough yet or the timing just isn't there yet (like when attempting to draw defenders to him to pass off he might make a stick handle a second too late or he doesn't retreat when he clearly can't bull past multiple defenders). I've been saying it for the past couple weeks, it looks like he's playing frustrated and he's forcing plays without considering if the play is there first. I noticed it more before his injury but I'd notice that Leo would look up at the ceiling on numerous occasions when Killorn would fumble basic passes from him or miss Leo well wide. It looks to me that he's tired of Killorn's inconsistency and their lack of chemistry. And Leason/Fabbri really haven't been much help. So as a result, more than usual, Leo is trying to do everything on his own and has stopped looking to make as many set ups. And it's resulted in some very mediocre performances, even in his recent two point game. No one on staff is helping him get out of his own head, no one with more talent is being tried with Leo, and it doesn't seem that anyone is coaching him on how to play more of the lone wolf style because more often than not he's making the same mistakes. You can't honestly say that much has improved with Leo outside of a better first four steps which he came to camp with so no credit goes to Cronin there. He's had better performances in the faceoff dot lately, but it's still not consistent. Killorn being staple gunned to Leo's hip for seemingly no reason other than Killorn is a veteran is holding Leo's development back and that should be fairly obvious to anyone.

 

[anezthes]

Bad:

McTavish
Mintyukov
Leo

Disagree with the assessment, but that right there is the reward for 246 games of suck.

 

[70sSanO]

Whether Verbeek’s rebuild is wrong or right, he isn’t going anywhere. While some of his signings are not that good, none have been absolutely horrible, and the bad ones are not long term.

For all the July 1 disappointment, maybe we dodged a bullet. We’ll see how things pan out for the Preds.

The truth is the Ducks really don’t draft very well. Apart from 2003, where a lot of teams couldn’t miss, we just have not found any consistent top 10 players. Hopefully our current roster will yield better results, but history is not on our side.

The only real mistake has been Cronin. He just has no answers. But he isn’t that much different than a lot of old school coaches who profess, “ When in doubt, grind it out.”

Putting together a competent coaching staff is the one area where I worry about Verbeek.

We don’t know how Verbeek really feels about Cronin because no GM of any team in any professional sport doesn’t give a vote of confidence to the coach he picked, at least until he is ready to can him.

John

 

[ZegrassyKnoll]

At this point the only acceptable explanation for Cronin not being fired is that Pat is interviewing the next coach

 

[KelVarnsen]

I wonder if we will hear players talking about how the new system a new coach implements will be “refreshing” or it’s “fun” to play hockey again after Cronin is fired (hopefully soon).

I think he is truly beating these guys down.

 

[dracom]

cronin is actually the hockey terrorist we thought Eakins was.

 

[KelVarnsen]

cronin is actually the hockey terrorist we thought Eakins was.

Eakins is not a good coach but he at least appeared to care for the players and they looked like they liked him.

It appears there is no joy or fun on this team under Cronin. I think he is just an abrasive old, old school coach who believes in beating players down if they make a mistake or dont do what he wants.

 

[Boo Boo]

cronin is actually the hockey terrorist we thought Eakins was.

Cronin would have gotten us bedard I’m sure of it

 

[Firequacker]

Eakins is not a good coach but he at least appeared to care for the players and they looked like they liked him.

It appears there is no joy or fun on this team under Cronin. I think he is just an abrasive old, old school coach who believes in beating players down if they make a mistake or dont do what he wants.

And then wonders why they aren't playing with confidence.

 

[ZegrassyKnoll]

So who is available that we would want? Don’t feel there are a ton of established options unfortunately.

Montgomery was never going to come here and I didn’t want Mcllellan.