Speculation: 2024-25 Roster thread

[Bergey37]

let me make sure I understand you correctly…

You find it odd that, 27-35 year old men, known as Veterans (every single veteran on our team besides Terry has made it to the conference championship / half of them the finals / and most have won) are performing better than 19-21 year old Rookies and Sophomores?


Yeah I’m gonna need the source on this, what’s its “recently” mean to you ?

I saw it on one of the threads here someone reposted a tweet (X?). It was within the last 2 weeks.

 

[Zegs2sendhelp]

Zegras back

We’re about to go on a magical run that leads us to playoffs

 

[Firequacker]

Fair enough, I hadn't seen those comments to be honest. Still seems odds as the vets are the producing and the kids are struggling. To me that is another mark against Cronin.

It is a bit odd, but maybe it's just the benefit of experience? The straightforward answer would be that buying what Cronin is selling is bad for your play, but I don't think he'd have lasted so long at lower levels if it were that simple.

Could see a scenario where the vets hesitated initially but were eventually convinced to buy in, but in the meantime the kids got disillusioned by the lack of success (and/or other factors, who knows) and now they aren't convinced by the vets they all know were balking originally. Purely speculative though.

Yeah I’m gonna need the source on this, what’s its “recently” mean to you ?

I believe he and Terry also said something about it a couple months ago, but this was recent.

 

[Mr Rogers]

Disconnected is probably the best way to describe the Ducks just by watching them play. And maybe it’s a metaphor for what the room is like as well but there’s no question they are constantly out of sync on the ice.

If they looked out of sorts for small segments during games I’d say that’s on the players but the sheer amount of time they spend looking disjointed is why I think it’s on the coaching. It’s not just one game here and there or a few minutes here and there but literally all the time.

There’s no question certain players have been disappointing but you’ve got to at least give them a chance with a guy who understands offense and is willing to put a system in place that suits his players.

 

[TheDarkWingThatDucks]

It is a bit odd, but maybe it's just the benefit of experience? The straightforward answer would be that buying what Cronin is selling is bad for your play, but I don't think he'd have lasted so long at lower levels if it were that simple.

Could see a scenario where the vets hesitated initially but were eventually convinced to buy in, but in the meantime the kids got disillusioned by the lack of success (and/or other factors, who knows) and now they aren't convinced by the vets they all know were balking originally. Purely speculative though.



I believe he and Terry also said something about it a couple months ago, but this was recent.

Thank you very much !!! But if anybody is reading that the locker room isn’t connected because if this statement, they are simply imagining things that aren’t there. IMO.

He’s talking about on ice, which is what Terry and himself were talking about months ago at the beginning of the season.

Our 2 worst stretches of play this season, followed by some generic quote from players about synergy / connectedness / “not knowing where each other are on the ice”, which I’d argue was his way of say connectivity-ness, which he’s now been coached to use as his buzz word for poor play. But maybe that’s just me, if someone wants to believe Cronin lost the locker room because of the words from Killorn, go ahead and believe that. I just don’t see it.

 

[Firequacker]

Thank you very much !!! But if anybody is reading that the locker room isn’t connected because if this statement, they are simply imagining things that aren’t there. IMO.

He’s talking about on ice, which is what Terry and himself were talking about months ago at the beginning of the season.

Our 2 worst stretches of play this season, followed by some generic quote from players about synergy / connectedness / “not knowing where each other are on the ice”, which I’d argue was his way of say connectivity-ness, which he’s now been coached to use as his buzz word for poor play. But maybe that’s just me, if someone wants to believe Cronin lost the locker room because of the words from Killorn, go ahead and believe that. I just don’t see it.

To me the better evidence for Cronin having lost the locker room was how he called a timeout to lecture the team about having pride, and Fabbri skated away before he was even done yelling at them.
To be clear, I don't consider that strong evidence. From the outside there's no way to prove anything, it's all arguing over who's the best armchair sports psychologist and body language expert. You're doing it here, I'm doing it, we're all doing it because we don't have enough to go on otherwise.

However...
The most damning thing about Killorn's comments in full context is not what he actually said. It's that Cronin was then asked about them, and his immediate answer was "I didn't feel a sense of disconnectivity."

The question about connectedness is at about 1:20.
Killorn gets a lot of (rightful IMO) grief for his on-ice play, but he is one of the guys wearing an A. When he comes out and says yes, the team feels disconnected and it's something the guys in the room are trying to figure out, and then his coach says he didn't feel like they were disconnected, that does raise some fair questions about how connected the coach is with his players.

 

[DavidBL]

let me make sure I understand you correctly…

You find it odd that, 27-35 year old men, known as Veterans (every single veteran on our team besides Terry has made it to the conference championship / half of them the finals / and most have won) are performing better than 19-21 year old Rookies and Sophomores?


Yeah I’m gonna need the source on this, what’s its “recently” mean to you ?

Yes I find it odd that if the veterans, who by those comments reported, are the ones struggling with the buy in are the successful players and the kids who reportedly are buying in are struggling with their development. Thes aren't late first round picks, these are top of the draft picks and to a boy they are struggling. More so than guys in similar situations. For the vets you would typically expect that if what the team is doing isn't in line with what they're doing then it's a fair argument, imo, that you would see a reduction in their effectiveness which doesn't really seem to be the case based on their career numbers.

 

[Hockey Duckie]

It is a bit odd, but maybe it's just the benefit of experience? The straightforward answer would be that buying what Cronin is selling is bad for your play, but I don't think he'd have lasted so long at lower levels if it were that simple.

Could see a scenario where the vets hesitated initially but were eventually convinced to buy in, but in the meantime the kids got disillusioned by the lack of success (and/or other factors, who knows) and now they aren't convinced by the vets they all know were balking originally. Purely speculative though.

I actually looked into Cronin's time with AHL Colorado teams. Those teams that were successful for Cronin were the ones where it was mostly older vets or older prospects atop the scoring sheet. Sometimes being a successful AHL team doesn't equate to being a successful with youth growth. Two years in with the Ducks and a majority of our youths are struggling.

The youths that aren't struggling are the older youths in defensemen LaCombe (turned 24 yrs old on Jan 9th) and Helleson (23 yrs old). Cronin might be better for defensive guys, but doesn't know how to develop offensive forwards.

Verbeek's M.O. is for the youths to get bigger and stronger as well as learn how to play through injuries. Eventually, the talent can win out due to getting bigger and stronger.

 

[MMC]

You guys are crashing out over practice lines

Ones that did not even end up being used in a game, at that

 

[Mr Rogers]

Ones that did not even end up being used in a game, at that

Well often times the expectation is that the lines would end up in a game when they practice like that. Maybe they were so poor in practice that Cronin thought it wasn’t worth it? People were pretty justifiably mystified by that.

 

[ohcomeonref]

Ones that did not even end up being used in a game, at that

You're just too smart for the rest of us!

 

[Hockey Duckie]

Ones that did not even end up being used in a game, at that

It's like panicking about shuffling chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

 

[Mr Rogers]

“(There’s) definitely been a lot of movement (on the lines for me) throughout the year,” McTavish said. “Sometimes, it's hard to kind of get adjusted quickly, but just got to do what you can and control what you can control.”

https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/anaheim-ducks/game-day/ducks-gameday-preview-01-23-25

Derek also included a video for his interview with MM, in which I feel like he’s a bit irritated with the shuffling

 

[Hockey Duckie]

So far we have on our team...

No name = Dostal
third liner = Mac
Stroke = Strome

are there others that I'm missing?

 

[ADHB]

So far we have on our team...

No name = Dostal
third liner = Mac
Stroke = Strome

are there others that I'm missing?

Not on our team anymore, but Hampus being Magnus was always the best one.

 

[Zegs2sendhelp]

To masons credit he’s played a lot better and been more of an on ice leader starting around the Philly game.

Seems like consistency is kinda the big thing keeping him from being the player we all want him to be.

 

[robbieboy3686]

To masons credit he’s played a lot better and been more of an on ice leader starting around the Philly game.

Seems like consistency is kinda the big thing keeping him from being the player we all want him to be.

I think he’s reached a point where many of the ducks need to reach “ ok I don’t like this Cronin dude but if I don’t shape up, I won’t get a big contract and I could even be traded for not getting along, f it it is what it is” in one sense verbeek standing Pat ( no pun intended ) does build a little more character in the players.

 

[HanSolo]

Not on our team anymore, but Hampus being Magnus was always the best one.

Kind of bottom of the barrel but Kessler was an annoying one.

 

[Mr Rogers]

 

[JonathnTaylorTavares]

View attachment 966564

They can all go to the front of the line by pushing McGinn around in a wheelchair. Classic hack

 

[ScarTroy]

View attachment 966564

Z is such a bro with the hand placement

 

[91Fedorov]

View attachment 966564

What's with Leo's pants? Does he not know how tall he is?

 

[LuGBuG]

To masons credit he’s played a lot better and been more of an on ice leader starting around the Philly game.

Seems like consistency is kinda the big thing keeping him from being the player we all want him to be.

Definitely. He’s still so young. We’ve seen why he can do many times and obviously we want it all the time. It’s same as Leo. They are ridiculously young and both are going to be VERY good players in different ways.

 

[Hockey Duckie]

How's our defensive unit doing so far this season?

Not one player above 50% CF percentage at Even Strength. Which means we are more often in our zone getting peppered instead of peppering the other team with shots.

Minty with the highest Defensive Zone Start% is probably why Minty has struggled this season. He needs to be sheltered in his deployment like Zellweger, but we are not doing so b/c we can only hide one defensive deficient youth.

Trouba is our best shot blocker and he is laying out more hits this year than he did with the NYR. That's good b/c Gudas needed the help in the hitting dept.

Helleson is our most responsible turnover defenseman. Gudas is a turnover machine.

Expected +/- relates to shots for and against. Here's Hockey-Reference.com's defintion:

LaCombe is the only plus player in this category. He does flip the ice more than any other Ducks d-man. We really need to upgrade our talent on the blueline, but it feels as though we have to develop a bunch of top-4D via draft than finding one via trade or FA.

 

[ohcomeonref]

LaCombe you stud