The bottom line is that both Eakins and Cronin aren’t the answer.
Cronin also being a bad coach doesn’t somehow make Eakins a good one.
The ducks need a proven coach with a track record of performance at the NHL Level - the issue is that it’s hard to get a guy like that to coach a team in a rebuild. This isn’t exactly a highly desirable destination at the moment for coaches with a pedigree. It might be 2 years from now
Under Eakins, both young and vets did improve. Fowler had new career highs in scoring, Des became a PK killer, and Rico was revived after being waived; Terry finally blossomed, Z's offense shined for two consecutive seasons, and Drysdale produced offensively in his rookie season. The one year Eakins had a mostly healthy roster, we were in a playoff atmosphere for the 2021-22 season.
2021-22 Season
- All-Star break: 3rd in Pacific
- TDL: 4 pts from 3rd in the Pacific
- End of season: 23 pts from 3rd in the Pacific
2022-23 Season: PV gave Eakins no defense and no bite over the summer. Strome, Vatrano, and Klingberg were the high-end vets PV brought in. We now know that none of them were top-line players.
2023-24 Season: Cronin was gifted a more talented roster over the summer from FA acquisitions and rookies. The GA improved, but the offense was inept. We were boring on the ice and the record barely improved from the previous season.
2024-25 Season: We've had a rough start to the season, but it's still a small sample. PP coach Clune has been a failure in five games. PK coach Thompson has us at 81.25% PK eff, ranked tied at 14th overall - though, our PK started off hot last year and decayed as the season went.
Cronin soured on me as the year went last year, but I'm willing to give him about half a season to review. I'm also hoping it's just the flu going around as more players are getting it.
Conclusion: With more talent, Eakins was able to produce as well as shown evidence of improvement with players. Cronin with more talent seems to have hit an offensive wall, stifling our youth offensively at forward. Talent matters and it's up to the GM to provide said talents. Then, it's up to the coaches to cultivate that talent into something. If we get a new coach, I don't know if we'll be vying for a playoff contention due to the fact we have a lot of youths still learning to become established and lacking in better quality vets to support the youths. For me, it's year 3 of the reset rebuild. I'm just looking for player improvement and I'm not seeing it in our forwards. Then again, it's only been five games and we need a larger sample size.
