Speculation: 2024-25 Coaching/Management/Ownership

[Hey234]

According to Natural Stat Trick, we're 27th in 5v5 GF with 95 goals. We're 10 goals away from the average. Our recent 16 goals in 3 games really did bump up our 5v5 rating. Then our last three games, we scored 6 goals in three games and somehow won two of the three games. Nine of our overall GF were EN (empty net goals).

I'm more worried about our 5v5 offense than our PP. A good PP can mask a horrible offense, but that will get exposed against tougher competition.

I don't disagree that 5v5 GF is a big issue, but every team's GF is slightly inflated from EN goals, and it should even out overall. I'm not really sure we should be concerned about the power play masking anything. I would love to solve the issue of too many goals on the power play. The 5v5 offense is something that I would hope improves with a new system/coach, additional top 6 forward, and more development from the young guys.

But the power play is seriously awful. I'm not suggesting the Ducks rely on their power play. At the same time, it should be a thing that helps. Right now, it does not. I'm just not sure I see the argument that they need to focus more 5v5 offense than the power play right now. Their record after 3 goals is crazy. That extra power play goal would help reach that number more.

 

[Hockey Duckie]

I don't disagree that 5v5 GF is a big issue, but every team's GF is slightly inflated from EN goals, and it should even out overall. I'm not really sure we should be concerned about the power play masking anything. I would love to solve the issue of too many goals on the power play. The 5v5 offense is something that I would hope improves with a new system/coach, additional top 6 forward, and more development from the young guys.

But the power play is seriously awful. I'm not suggesting the Ducks rely on their power play. At the same time, it should be a thing that helps. Right now, it does not. I'm just not sure I see the argument that they need to focus more 5v5 offense than the power play right now. Their record after 3 goals is crazy. That extra power play goal would help reach that number more.

The problem with 5v5 play and Verbeek is I don't think Verbeek wants an offensive-minded coach. That's what we had in Eakins. Eakins' last year and Cronin's first year both had bottom league PP and PK units. Despite Cronin gaining a vastly talented roster in his first year (C Carlsson, F Killorn, RD Gudas, RD Lyubushkin, LD LaCombe, LD MInty, RD Luneau (to start the season), LD Zell (to end the season), RD Lindstrom, and a healthy LD Vaak), Cronin's offense fell short of production and only earned one more point than Eakins' group. At ES, Eakins GF/gp rate was 2.06 while Cronin's was 1.83. What boosted Cronin's overall GF was his PK unit scoring 12 shorties! Cronin's team would have been even worse if it were not for the 12 shorties, which ranked 2nd best in the league!

Verbeek didn't give Eakins a second thought once the season was over with, but praised Cronin for his season. Cronin improved the Goal Differential (GD), but didn't know how to generate more points out of it. It didn't make any sense to me that Cronin was praised, tbh.

Year 2 of Cronin is essentially running it back. Great goaltending is masking our deficient offense and porous defense. Some posters are already thinking if we only had a PP, then we'd be in the playoff hunt. Yet, all the metrics are screaming we're a lucky bunch with great netminding! Look at our "Shots For" metric as proof we're lucky to be scoring goals. We are currently last in the league in total GF's. Then our "Shots Against" metric as proof we're nothing without our great goalies.

Shots For at 5v5 (Money Puck)

High Danger Shots For = 102 (21st highest)​

Medium Danger Shots For = 275 (31st highest)​

Low Danger Shots For = 1366 (20th highest)​

Shots Against at 5v5 (Money Puck)

High Danger Shots Against = 135 (3rd highest)​

Medium Danger Shots Against = 385 (Highest)​

Low Danger Shots Against = 1507 (4th highest)​

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If Verbeek was happy last year with Cronin, then he'll be ecstatic this year because look at the record. That record improved because of "culture" and "connectivity". And if only we had a PP unit that worked, then we're definitely on the correct path to the playoffs. This is what I truly fear... that Cronin will be praised once again and kept around for a third season.

 

[TheDarkWingThatDucks]

Here’s a fun little trivia question.

Does anybody know who owns the NHL league leading power play @ like 33% ? Its the Winnipeg Jets.

Does anyone know who their PP coach is ?

It’s Davis Payne. Great coach right !!! 33+ % PP !!!

Where do I know him from though ?

Oh wait he was the power play coach for the league worst PP in 2019-20 @ 14.2% and bottom 6 in 2020-21 for the Senators @ 15.5%.

Now I’m trying to figure out what could be different from the Senators in 2021 and the Jets from 2025 ?

Because in 4-5 years their power play coach went from the worse in the league to the best in the league and was fired.

I’m really searching hard for any clue, I’m just surprised that Davis learned so much, so quickly and finally became a good coach.

Young teams are usually not good at professional hockey, and their stats usually show that. Do we know Brady Tkachuck scored less points his second year (20 year old year) than his rookie year ? And even less his third year !!! Now is there context to these stats, you betcha, 71 games ea his first 2 years, 45 pts his rookie and 44 his sophomore. 36 in 56 games his third year. He went from .63 - .61 - .64 PPG player his first 3 years. So I’d argue pretty stagnant, didn’t really take a jump until year 4, where since he’s been a .90 PPG in around 300 games.

Stop me if this sounds familiar, The senators made the ECF in 2016-17 and haven’t made the playoffs since. By 2019-20, they had Thomas Chabot and 24 games of Bobby Ryan as the only players who were on the roster for part of the 16-17 regular season. They traded EVERYONE for multiple 1st round and 2nd round picks., something the ducks started doing trade deadline of 21-22, or as some people like to call it, “The Verbeekening”.

Ottawa, who currently holds the WC2 spot, tied for 3rd in their division, who hasn’t made the playoffs 1 year longer than us, who started their rebuild 3 years before us.

Couple we actually be on a better trajectory than them in terms of speed or our rebuild ?

All I know is our ownership is cheap, our GM is a stubborn idiot whom we are willing to maybe give 1 more coach, our coaching staff is the worst in the history of the ENTIRE league and will never amount to anything ever, they bring shame to their families, and our players are maybe overhyped prospects who definitely are being hindered, probably with irreversible harm and we are officially Buffalo of the west. If only our xGA was 22nd instead of bottom 2, arg then I would be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

No but really just wanted to show some interesting things around the league, that show good coaches can be held back by bad teams (not saying Cronin is a good coach), good teams can prop up bad coaches, and stagnant players on bad teams, can become better individual players, and find more team success as they go from 20 to 24…. For example.

 

[MMC]

Here’s a fun little trivia question.

Does anybody know who owns the NHL league leading power play @ like 33% ? Its the Winnipeg Jets.

Does anyone know who their PP coach is ?

It’s Davis Payne. Great coach right !!! 33+ % PP !!!

Where do I know him from though ?

Oh wait he was the power play coach for the league worst PP in 2019-20 @ 14.2% and bottom 6 in 2020-21 for the Senators @ 15.5%.

Now I’m trying to figure out what could be different from the Senators in 2021 and the Jets from 2025 ?

Because in 4-5 years their power play coach went from the worse in the league to the best in the league and was fired.

I’m really searching hard for any clue, I’m just surprised that Davis learned so much, so quickly and finally became a good coach.

Young teams are usually not good at professional hockey, and their stats usually show that. Do we know Brady Tkachuck scored less points his second year (20 year old year) than his rookie year ? And even less his third year !!! Now is there context to these stats, you betcha, 71 games ea his first 2 years, 45 pts his rookie and 44 his sophomore. 36 in 56 games his third year. He went from .63 - .61 - .64 PPG player his first 3 years. So I’d argue pretty stagnant, didn’t really take a jump until year 4, where since he’s been a .90 PPG in around 300 games.

Stop me if this sounds familiar, The senators made the ECF in 2016-17 and haven’t made the playoffs since. By 2019-20, they had Thomas Chabot and 24 games of Bobby Ryan as the only players who were on the roster for part of the 16-17 regular season. They traded EVERYONE for multiple 1st round and 2nd round picks., something the ducks started doing trade deadline of 21-22, or as some people like to call it, “The Verbeekening”.

Ottawa, who currently holds the WC2 spot, tied for 3rd in their division, who hasn’t made the playoffs 1 year longer than us, who started their rebuild 3 years before us.

Couple we actually be on a better trajectory than them in terms of speed or our rebuild ?

All I know is our ownership is cheap, our GM is a stubborn idiot whom we are willing to maybe give 1 more coach, our coaching staff is the worst in the history of the ENTIRE league and will never amount to anything ever, they bring shame to their families, and our players are maybe overhyped prospects who definitely are being hindered, probably with irreversible harm and we are officially Buffalo of the west. If only our xGA was 22nd instead of bottom 2, arg then I would be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

No but really just wanted to show some interesting things around the league, that show good coaches can be held back by bad teams (not saying Cronin is a good coach), good teams can prop up bad coaches, and stagnant players on bad teams, can become better individual players, and find more team success as they go from 20 to 24…. For example.

I love you

 

[TheDarkWingThatDucks]

I love you

Hahahahah I’d like to thank the academy. Sometimes when I go to sleep, it’s not just TheDarkWingThatDucks that dreams, it’s the been loved once by MMC, TheDarkWingThatDucks that dreams. I thank you for making my dreams a little better.

Edit : also the sad thing is I do this all on my phone, so all these hockey reference and espn stats I’m looking up I’ve got to go back and forth from typing / memorizing numbers / doing math…… I’m a psycho and I hate who I’ve become hahaha

 

[FlyingV09]

LaCombe has played top pairing D last year and this year. We can see the vast improvement between the two seasons. He actually shown improvement as a top-4D as the season went and closed out last year as our best all around youth d-man as proof his ascension was not a fluke.

LaCombe is in the first year of a two-year contract. He's making under a million AAV. I believe he's eligible for an extension in the summer. For the org's perspective, try to sign him this summer to a long contract at a decent price. For LaCombe's camp, his agent will probably pass on a decent AVV on a long contract and gamble on being even a better player in year 2 of his current contract. Then that will boost his price even more along with the second bump in the cap going into 2026-27.

The question for the Ducks is, "How much ceiling is left for LaCombe and the probability he'll get there next year?" That's gonna be a pretty penny.

Thanks for the laugh.

LaCombe may have been playing on the top pair for a good portion of last year, but he was closer to an AHL defenseman last year than a top pairing one. That is a fact.

He didn’t look much better to start this season, but has sure come into his own. That being said, I wouldn’t be ready to hand him any big time deal just yet. Let’s see what we have there the rest of this season and a good portion of next season. I hope he keeps improving and he becomes a bonafide top pair guy, but he’s not there yet. Not even close.

 

[TheDarkWingThatDucks]

Thanks for the laugh.

LaCombe may have been playing on the top pair for a good portion of last year, but he was closer to an AHL defenseman last year than a top pairing one. That is a fact.

He didn’t look much better to start this season, but has sure come into his own. That being said, I wouldn’t be ready to hand him any big time deal just yet. Let’s see what we have there the rest of this season and a good portion of next season. I hope he keeps improving and he becomes a bonafide top pair guy, but he’s not there yet. Not even close.

My buddy H-Duckie doesn’t argue he was a top pairing defensemen, just was being utilized as a top pairing D, to bad results to begin the year last year.

But yes the contract is probably either lock up short term, 3 ish years and a smaller cap, or he bets on himself. Like everything ducks, time will tell.

 

[Hockey Duckie]

Thanks for the laugh.

LaCombe may have been playing on the top pair for a good portion of last year, but he was closer to an AHL defenseman last year than a top pairing one. That is a fact.

He didn’t look much better to start this season, but has sure come into his own. That being said, I wouldn’t be ready to hand him any big time deal just yet. Let’s see what we have there the rest of this season and a good portion of next season. I hope he keeps improving and he becomes a bonafide top pair guy, but he’s not there yet. Not even close.

Guess we had a bunch of AHL defensemen last year since we used LaCombe to shelter all of the other pairings. ====

LaCombe was forced to the top pairing because Drysdale got injured, Luneau wasn't ready, and Vaak cannot play RD. LaCombe essentially sheltered everyone else from the top pairing role, which he wasn't designed for his rookie season. LaCombe was supposed to be a 2nd pairing guy with Gudas. To maintain the youth-vet D pairing set, Gudas and Lyubushkin were RD2 and RD3, respectively; Vaaks would pair with Gudas and Minty with Lyubushkin.

When Minty did play top-4 minutes, his defense was exposed and his scoring dropped. That prompted him to play back on the 3rd line for a bit. Minty's best outing in a top-4 role was with LaCombe.

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LaCombe's growth throughout his rookie season ====


The top-pairing experience actually helped LaCombe improve throughout the season as he quickly became acclimated to the speed and play of the NHL to where Cronin said LaCombe was the most improve player for the season.

To close out the season, LaCombe's defense and offense popped off, in a good way. Minty and Zell's defense didn't pop, despite having more favorable DZ Start%. All three were playing mostly top-4 roles.

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This season ====

To start this season, LaCombe got sick that he missed over a week from playing. He probably lost some weight to be so sick to miss over a week. It took LaCombe seven games to get back into hockey shape and game play. I've shared this info often through out the season.

The point of bringing up the possibility of extending LaCombe "after" this season would be to lock him him on a long term at a decent cost. If we wait until the 2026 summer, then it's possible we will have to pay LaCombe a lot more. And seeing the trajectory of LaCombe's play between the two seasons, Anaheim will probably pay a pretty penny if we wait until the summer of 2026. That's cool too b/c at least we know he's truly worth it.

This is a fun exercise of if the Ducks should extend LaCombe, while watching LaCombe ascend his game. But if you're believing that LaCombe's recent surge is a fluke, then I can see why you don't trust this production. I've been keeping track of LaCombe since he was drafted in 2019. Guess that's why I'm bullish on his every growing improved play.