Cronin has an idea of how players should be, but is obtuse about how to best to maximize their actual talents. Case in point, Cronin said Mac should play like Tkachuk b/c Mac is big (weight and strength, not height nor length). The problem is that Mac's game is different form Tkachuk. Why can't Cronin just build Mac as Mac than some other player who's skills are different from Mac? Similarly with Zegras, why convert him into a defensive stalwart in all at one-time as the expense of his offense?
When Colangelo was called up, Colangelo was the Gulls' second leading scorer and leading goal scorer. After a few games in the NHL, the puck seems to follow Colangelo (or he knows where to go to anticipate where the puck will be) and has looked dangerous when he has an opportunity to score. The Ducks needed more offense, but Cronin kept Colangelo as a fourth liner than test him in a top-6 role. Cronin said to be up in the NHL, Colangelo's role is to be a 4th liner. I thought Colangelo had some chemistry with Mac on the ice, but was never given a true audition. Why is that?
Cronin has odd preferences. Z gets picked on a lot for mistakes other youths and vets make. Mac gets shifted from first to fourth lines. Colangelo gets buried on the 4th line. LaCombe was pressed on too much last year to where LaCombe had to do some psyche development over the summer to withstand Cronin's pressuring.
Hockey is in a different age and going with an old school coach does not mix well with today's youths. That was the reason why former GM Murray went with Eakins as his head coach for the NHL rebuild. Eakins already has shown he can help youths in the AHL level. Eakins helped Terry finally figure out the NHL level to become a 37-goal scorer, helped Z score 23 goals and over 60 points since his official rookie season for two seasons, and helped Drysdale score 32 points in his rookie season.
Eakins was indiscriminate who he benched or needed waived from rookies to youths to vets. He was given the green light to waive Rico and that woke Rico to play at a high level again.
View attachment 947167
The coaching and roster makeup matters for outcomes. We can use Eakins to compare to Cronin. Eakins had a healthy roster with several rookies in 2021-22 to start the season. Murray resigned in early Nov and Verbeek was hired at all-star break, knowing Manson was put on IR. The Ducks blueline had to rely on three rookies in Drysdale (Rd 1), Mahura (rd 3), and Benoit (UDFA). After the Verbeekening at the TDL, Eakins changed how the team played. The defense did improve, but the offense continued to suffer. Eakins' offense is dependent on good defense.
Now it's established that we can have a coach that can improve defensive play while not hurting its offense. We just have to find an offensive-minded head coach, but support him with a very good defensive assistant coach.
Then compared 2022-23 Eakins to 2023-24 Cronin. The defensive improvement happened because of a massive roster turnover on the blueline with physicality in RD Gudas, RD Lyubushkin, LD Minty, LD/RD LaCombe, and a healthy Vaak. Cronin had an amazing defensive improvement with respect to GA/GP, but Cronin didn't know how to win games. Cronin earned only one more point with a far better roster than Eakins' 2022-23 roster. That was a huge failure. Except many on here still didn't believe anyone could be worse than Eakins that they dismissed how bad Cronin's offense was until this season started.
Cronin is one-dimensional who rarely deviates from his form. That is a problem. On the ice, our compete level looked better under Eakins than Cronin on a daily basis. It could be that Cronin is overworking the team and fatigue is reflected on the ice.
In conclusion, I think Cronin is a better defensive assistant coach than a head coach. That's why our young blueliners are progressing better than our young forwards. He lacks the big picture and our youth forwards are the ones who are suffering from it.
We won't get rid of Cronin this year b/c he is the embodiment of Verbeek. Verbeek is the problem and Cronin is the symptom.
