I’m just not sure what young players regressed.
McTavish improved-was still inconsistent but way higher production than his rookie year
Mintyukov was a rookie that played well in his age 19
Carlsson - same as Mintyukov
Zellweger - mostly the same as above
Zegras was hurt the whole year basically
LaCombe - this is the only one I blame Cronin for. They put him in a terrible spot on his offside with Fowler on top pairing
After that, you’re left with players like Lundestrom who just might not be good enough to hack it.
I don’t consider Terry a “young player” personally but I’d be willing to grant you that one as well
I really don’t think it’s fair to pin young players regressing on Cronin after one season. This season will certainly be eye opening
I blame Verbeek for the injuries to Zegras and Drysdale b/c he didn't sign them before training camp and Verbeek knew how much more demanding training camp was going to be under Cronin by stating it was like "drinking through a firehose".
The ensuing injuries on the youths are on Cronin's "drinking through a firehose" initiation as well as doubling the workload on game days, including during pre-season! The only youth not affected by injury was LaCombe; he didn't play 82 games b/c he was put into a game rotation later into the season. B/c our youths got injured, that affects their development. For reference, youths Zegras and Mac played over 80 games the year prior under Eakins. The most games played by a youth this season was Mac at 64 games!
Although Mac's ppg production greatly improved, his defense and discipline (penalty taking) took a nose dive. Mac got injured and played through injury, which is never ideal for any youth.
As for LaCombe being put into the top line, that isn't Cronin's fault. Cronin isn't in charge of the roster, Verbeek is. Drysdale was RD1 to start the season. Then Luneau tried RD1 for two games and wasn't ready. Afterwards, Vaak played on the top line on his off-side for 1 and half games before being displaced by LaCombe.
We won more games to start the season with LaCombe than any other d-man playing RD1. During games 6 - 20 with LaCombe playing RD 1, we went 8-7-0. LaCombe posted 3 points, but had a -16 rating. During games 21-40 for LaCombe, he cycled off and on the RD1, but where he played 20 minutes or more, the team went 5-5-1; under 20 minutes (implying not top-pairing minutes), the team went 1-8-0. Also during that game 21-40 stint, LaCombe scored 4 points and was a -7 rating ... which is still an improvement. In LaCombe's game 6 through 40 where he played RD1, we went 13-12-1. That's about half our wins on the season in the first 40 games!
To put this into perspective, with Zellweger playing RD1 in the Ducks last 22 games, we went 6-14-2. Zell scored 8 points and had a -8 rating.
Despite all the bitching about LaCombe, his play as RD1 not only sheltered the rest of the pairings, but also gave the Ducks better chances of winning games b/c Verbeek didn't have enough RD talent on the team due to keeping RD Luneau on a weight lifting program for the first half of the season, wasting an NHL roster spot.
Now, as for scoring on ES, we scored 19 fewer ES goals this year than the previous year. That's pathetic.