GDT: #43 ⋅ ANA @ CAR ⋅ 2:00 PM PST
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Hockey Duckie
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No one actually says that about our young defensemen scoring b/c they're actually scoring. LaCombe and Zell are in our top-10 scorers on the team. LaCombe, Zell, and Minty were scoring last year!
| Ducks | Youth D | 2023-24 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Game set | Games | G | A | Pts | PPG | +/- | Hits | Blocks | Comments | |
| LaCombe | 49 to 71 | 23 | 1 | 7 | 8 | 0.35 | 1 | 12 | 44 | From Feb 19 to Apr 18 | |
| Minty | 41 to 63 | 23 | 2 | 7 | 9 | 0.39 | -9 | 29 | 22 | from Feb 13 to Mar 30 | |
| Zell | 5 to 26 | 22 | 2 | 6 | 8 | 0.36 | -8 | 10 | 33 | From Mar 1 to Apr 18 |
It's the fact our forward youths are having a difficult time scoring is a significant problem. Here's a perfect example:
Watching highlights and in first 2min, Car should.have scored 3 goals. Dostal really masks how terrible this team is
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The Midnight Burrito
True Fan
Carolina pbp guy keeps pronouncing it as Does-stall.
Super annoying. Like, he's not the first Czech player in the NHL, spend 5 min before the game and learn how to pronounce the players names isn't a big ask, it's literally part of your job.
Super annoying. Like, he's not the first Czech player in the NHL, spend 5 min before the game and learn how to pronounce the players names isn't a big ask, it's literally part of your job.
robbieboy3686
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Just driving home what a different universe of expected officiating we live in here, the Carolina boards are arguing that the GI was absolutely not GI, and was Dostal’s fault for having his stick in the guy’s skates. They also apparently don’t know where the crease is.
They scored like 10 seconds later that didn’t even lose them the game. What crybabies.
ducks8
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The Midnight Burrito
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Lacombe up to 34th in scoring among defensemen. Considering how barren this team has been offensively, that's pretty great.
Really nice to see Cutter score that way. That angle change right before he releases the shot in OT is just incredible. Hopefully with the Flyers game in the past and these goals will continue to boost his confidence and play. He just keeps playing better which is great to see. Leo had good moments, and LaCombe is having quite a breakout season.
Another goalie win. This is a perfect example of how there is talent on the team that is being utilized incorrectly. There is no way to argue that the coaching/structure led to this win; this was Dostal and lucky goals. Ducks really didn't play well. Fire Cronin.
Another goalie win. This is a perfect example of how there is talent on the team that is being utilized incorrectly. There is no way to argue that the coaching/structure led to this win; this was Dostal and lucky goals. Ducks really didn't play well. Fire Cronin.
Hockey Duckie
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He's tied with Brock Faber in total points, but LaCombe has played in five fewer games. As for ppg rate, he's 24th in the league for defensemen!
Where did you come from
Where did you go
Where did you come from
Jackson LaCombe!
Hockey Duckie
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KaseMeOutside
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The Midnight Burrito
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We’re much better at shot prevention now, something Eakins never emphasized. Like we gave up 37 shots last night but also blocked 28 (Carolina blocked 8), so we did help ourselves win that way. We’re a possession catastrophe still.
TheDarkWingThatDucks
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Yes 60+ pts on teams that got dog walked every night. Zegras is a better hockey player today than under Eakins, held to a higher standard, and hopefully becomes a legit star when he starts scoring again. I say when, because I see it as a matter of time, not a question if he can.
Leo and Cutter have only played under Cronin.
McT improved his PPG pace, Terry is on pace for a career high per 82 games. Vats set a career high under Cronin, Strome matched his PPG with both Cronin and Eakins.
Martin Necas is a perfect example, 26 years old 40 points a season player his whole career with 1 season at 71 pts and a huge step back to 53 pts last year , he has 50 this year, and 3 less pts than last year in 33 less games. Was Rob the BOD the problem? He wasn’t developing Martin well enough ? Why is he now over a PPG pace but he wasn’t before ? Bad coaching and bad development ? Bad ownership ? Bad scouting and drafting ?
What has changed to make Necas the best player on the ice most nights ? I gotta assume coaching, but they have the same coach. So what could it be ?
I’m not going to pretend Cronin is some genius coach, but at the same time, I’m not going to pretend the forwards aren’t developing, stat sheet be damned. I have faith our GM (in fact any gm in a rebuild) would fire a coach if he felt the players weren’t developing to his liking. Can we agree on that, like GM’s aren’t going to watch their drafted talent be abused and broken by an imbecile head coach. Cronin is in the top 1/2 of the league most tenured coach. He doesn’t have 130 games coached yet, and more than half the league has been fired since he was hired.
Does this sub truly believe, that because Verbeek is so dumb or so macho he is afraid to admit a mistake, he won’t fire a bad coach who is ruining all the high end talent that has been drafted ?
Or, and this is just wild conjecture on my part, maybe, just maybe, behind closed doors, ownership and management actually have a plan on how to properly develop prospects and stat sheet be damned they are sticking to their principals. My problem is our GM has no track record of developing prospects. Hedman and Stamkos were top end talent that busted out of the league. Kucherov / point / Killorn / Cirreli / palat (7th round) were 2nd and 3rd round picks who shouldn’t even have been drafted, they could have gotten Stankhoven !!!
All in all, we got blown out in back 2 back games missing the only 2 players on our team to ever score 60 pts in an NHL season. Hey if anyone wants to argue this isn’t a bottom 10 roster in the league, I’m all ears ? Bad rosters get blown out, we also are the youngest team in the NHL, so our bottom 10 roster has some signs of hope for the future. If only our GM would wake up and realize Cronin is ruining the future by messing up the development of the young players. Verbeek, who has a job 32 out of 390 million people own, and yet we hired the 1 idiot who is willing to hurt the franchise so long as he doesn’t have to look stupid by firing his dumb dumb coach, that HE picked.
TheDarkWingThatDucks
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I know, it’s almost as if fanatics are not smart. They want to be, in fact they crave to be. But it all ends up the same old, pitchforks and echo chamber. How dare anyone say Verbeek isn’t as dumb as I think he is, can you believe all the awful trades he made, and free agent signings, and he let Sam steel walk for nothing, awful asset management. Can you believe he tried weaponize my cap space to trade for Dadanov ? Idiot. He drafted Sennecke ? 3rd overall ? He could have drafted him 20th and traded back. He picked Leo over fantalli ? Are you serious ? I thought Adam was a lock at 2nd overall, so I watched all these draft videos on him and fell in love with him as a prospect and already assumed we drafted him. And we pick some Swedish kid ? Come on Verbeek you idiot. Cronin is clearly ruining every young prospect he touches and lost the locker room too. No matter how much Vats lies because he got paid, suspicious much ? Why is Verbeek so bad at his job, he hired the worse coach every in history of coaching, so we as a franchise have 1) the worst owners in the league, 2) the worse GM ever hired in the league, 3) the worse head coach, who is so bad all he can say is …. I don’t know, and he can’t make any in game adjustments, like he is the first coach ever to not understand that hockey has strategy, and adjustments, and if we didn’t have the worse GM we never would have hire the worse coach of all time. 4) great goalie coaches, but that must have been a fluke, cause with the worse ownership, gm, head coach…. No way it was on purpose, we failed upwards!!!
This is what this fanbase sounds like. This is what I hear daily on this forum, nails on a f***ing chalkboard. No intelligent conversation, nothing more than surface level. XGF % bad = we bad, development ruined. I don’t know man bad. Dump and chase bad, but yet not 1 comment on a system they think would be beneficial, maybe some examples of teams and coaches who run that system successfully at the NHL level. PP coach bad, fire Verbeek ! Pk coach also bad, fire Cronin.
Maybe just maybe having 2 D-men 21 years old, 2 d-men 23 years old….. and having a forward group of 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 (top 9), and two players currently on the roster 23, nesty and Colangelo….. just maybe we might have some growing pains. These kids might not be ready to face off against 28 -32 year old men in Their prime ? Maybe ? Mayhaps ? Perchance ? Parliament ? Funkadelic ? George Clinton and the parliament of funk ? Bootsy Collins ? I’d rather be with Verbeek ?
Hockey Duckie
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Shot prevention could be attributed to roster construction. For example, Fowler has 29 blocked shots for us in 17 games this season, but Trouba has 53 blocked shots for us since we traded for him and he did that in only 17 games. A year prior, rookie LaCombe became our third best shot blocker with 129 blocks; Fowler had 119 blocks in 10 more games than LaCombe. That is just looking at shot blocks and noticing talent matters. Talent also matters in all aspects of shot prevention such as winning puck battles, zone entry prevention, etc...
We all recall Eakins' last year as head coach and everyone was complaining about the high volume of SA. I denoted when we were giving up a lot of SA in the 37 to 40 range that it was done on purpose to help us earn more points. I showed that pattern and it was true. Verbeek gave Eakins a shit blueline roster with very little physicality. Benoit, in his 2nd NHL season, and Shattenkirk were our top-2 shot blockers for that season. That should help explain the lack of talent on the blueline.
Here are the past six years for the Ducks' SA records. During the 56-game COVID season, Lindholm only played in 18 games and Manson 23 games. The 2021-22 season doesn't look as great, but we lost Lindholm, Manson, and Des (part of the PK unit) at the TDL. If Eakins has the talent available, then a lower shot prevention is reflected.
Stats from Hockey-Reference, using the goalie stats shots total.
With the history presented above, we can clearly see Eakins is getting a bad rap for the 2022-23 season. And what should be more infuriating to Duck fans is seeing the shot suppression (and GA) improve vastly the following season, but Cronin could only manage one extra point than the less talented roster Eakins was given. Thus, continually proving my point that Eakins purposely played a high stakes game to generate more points with a shit roster given unto him.
Hockey Duckie
Registered User
You do like pivoting onto other things when you get called out to obscure your mistaken point.
Your perspective is very narrow-minded and lacking context with respect to only using 2022-23 season for Z. We were in a playoff spot when Verbeek inherited the team in 2021-22, when Z was a rookie who posted 61 points (23g, 38a).
Learning to play defense as an offensive-minded talent will take years to develop. This was explicitly explained by Getzlaf in a podcast when presented with a hypothetical of creating a team to choose a young McDavid or prime Crosby. Getz chose Crosby because Getz said it takes years to develop a 200-ft game. Z was learning how to play defense and was benched often if he made an egregious mistake under Eakins. But Eakins was indiscriminate to benching players who made mistakes or were not up to par to playing such as helping to waive Rico during COVID season. Under Cronin, Z gets picked on more than other players b/c he's Z. What did help change Z's mind about being a 200-ft player was also being benched at World Championships.
I find contradictions in your diatribe.
- You don't like using stats to prove our young FORWARDS are not developing, but you give any substance as to how they actually are developing.
- You cite that Mac improved his PPG rate, but he dropped to 0.49 ppg from 0.66 ppg last season.
- You cite Terry projecting to a new career high in points, but Terry isn't part of the youth program.
- You use Necas as an example, but not denote he played 82 games in 2022-23, 77 games in 2023-24, and 44 games out of 44 games this season. It's possible Necas might have had an injury that may hindered his play. Yet, you don't go deep diving to give us qualitative analysis. Oh... and you're using damned stats when it fits your argument.
- You use the excuse of missing two Ducks who scored 60+ points in previous seasons in the blowout, but not realize those two Ducks scored 60+ points under Eakins - not Cronin.
- You use the excuse of missing two Ducks who scored 60+ points in previous seasons in the blowout, but don't give a reason why we won against Carolina after the two blowouts without the two Ducks who scored 60+ points
- You cite that we have a shit roster, but don't realize that GM Verbeek conjured up this shit roster.
- You cite that we have a shit roster and we're a young team, but believe GM Verbeek doesn't make mistakes in helping to shelter the youths.
All of this assumes that Verbeek, who has never been an NHL GM before, is already good at his job. While I certainly hope that, we don't know that. He might be one of 32 but as we know from all professions (and especially the pro sports industry) these jobs often go to guys who are known and respected for things other than their managerial acumen. That doesn't mean Verbeek is necessarily bad, but it does mean he probably had an advantage in getting the job over guys who might have been better qualified.
I highly doubt Verbeek is dumb. And while I would guess he's got a certain amount of macho pride running through him (as most high level athletes do on some level), I don't think that comes to bear here. But your post also assumes that Verbeek will always make decisions purely in the best interest of the organization and without regard to his own job security. His first coaching hire has not gone well in terms of on-ice results. There are certainly background metrics to which we are not privy that Verbeek is using to evaluate Cronin and Cronin's effect on development. All we have are the eye test and the publicly available metrics. And by both of those, very few players have taken steps forward in the last two years. Qualitatively, the rumors have indicated that players do not enjoy playing for Anaheim (your mileage may vary). Those aren't great indicators that Verbeek chose a good coach.
Verbeek choosing not to fire Cronin could be that Verbeek believes he is doing a good job, and we simply aren't seeing the results yet. It could also be that Verbeek is acutely aware that he has only so many coaching hires he can make before jeopardizing his own job security, and pulling the plug on his first coaching hire less than two years into the job is a pretty big warning sign that Verbeek himself isn't fit for the GM position. It could be somewhere in between - maybe Verbeek thinks Cronin has been just ok, but it's not bad enough to make such a drastic move as firing him.
I still have hope that Verbeek knows what he's doing. I no longer have hope that Cronin is fit to coach an NHL team. Perhaps there are habits being developed off ice that will serve these players well once a better coach is brought in. Perhaps the players simply aren't good and will never be good (which is something I can't bring myself to accept lest I lose all interest). But I haven't seen enough progress to indicate that Cronin is doing what he was purportedly brought in to do. And it's on Verbeek to fix it.
Rooch
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I get it, but I've become defeatist about my Angels baseball team due to their owner being awful and it's a bummer. I'm not ready to give up on the Ducks.
Verbeek has done some good things, in my opinion. And while the execution on some of his hires hasn't been great, I at least see what he's going for. I don't think it's fair to write Verbeek off at this point. If the team isn't on the verge of the playoffs next season, though, it's probably time for the owners to admit they whiffed on their GM hire.
TheDarkWingThatDucks
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Hey everything you’ve said here is based in logic and has sound reasoning!
I’d say assuming Verbeek is good at his job is a similar position to thinking the players are good enough talent wise to succeed in the NHL. Like obviously if Verbeek is a good to great GM that makes the ducks a good to great team, which is ideal.
Why I like Verbeek as a GM. So he played a few years in the NHL, oh it was 21 years ? I mean must have been a big boy then to withstand that type of punishment, oh he is 5’9” ? Well he must have been a pretty boy afraid of contact player, his nickname was “the little ball of hate”, well he couldn’t have any noteworthy NHL records, the only NHL player with over 500 goals and 2,500 penalty minutes ?
Well sure, but he probably doesn’t deserve a jump straight to being a GM, well he started as a broadcaster, then Scout, then Assistant GM, before getting his own shot as GM. Granted the one team he was assistant GM for ended up winning 2 cups after the GM and him left for Detroit, but 8 of the 10 leading scoring in the playoffs for those winning teams, were drafted or developed by yzerman and Verbeek’s staff.
I know our fanbase likes to point as Detroit as a failure, but they have a 24 year old rookie former 2nd round pick on the team, 20 year old (8oa)forward with 1 year of experience, 21 year old D (6OA)and 24 year old F (2nd rounder)with 2 years of experience, 23 year old D (6OA) and 22 year old F (4OA) with 3 years of experience. Their 22 year old stud goalie prospect has 1 NHL game so far.
They don’t have a top 3 pick, we have 3. Their second round picks joined the NHL at 24 and 22. Ours played their first games at 19 (Luneau) / 20 (Zelly) / 22 (Colangelo and LaCombe) / 21 (for 3 games helleson drafted by Colorado but technically ours)…. Our 24 year old stud goalie prospect played 4 games at 21 and is close to being an everyday starter. Detroit is building a nice little team, we have so much more potential talent than them it’s sickening, we legit have the opportunity to build a f***ing wagon dudes and dudettes.
You know not counting this year, we have 4 of the last 4 IIHF world junior gold medalist and point leaders for the tournament.
9th OA Zegras / 3rd OA McT / (1st Bedard sad face) / 5th OA Cutter . Serious question has any team ever been able to say they drafted (or traded for before playing an NHL game) 3 of the 4 top point getters and gold medalist winning for the world juniors ? And on top of that talent we have …. 2nd OA Leo / 3rd OA Beckett / 10th OA Minty / whatever our 1st ends up this year. 20th OA Stian / 26th ? OA gaucher / second and third rounders ( pettersson / Masse / Proc….. / Tarin Smith / Myatovic / Terrance / Clara / Sidorov / Pitre / Warren / Luneau / pasta / Hinds / Moore ?.
If you’re not excited about the future, check your f***ing pulse.
Greg Cronin is a 60+ year old stop gap coach, who sole job is to get the team to be competitive, buy into an identity (even a shitty one), develop at the NHL. If Verbeek doesn’t think he’s doing these things, he would fire him, I agree his shelf life his equivalent to coaches and could somewhat cloud his decision. But I think our owners and management have a clear idea of when this team will be truly competitive. I’m not the savviest of businessmen in the world, but I’d argue, the ideal time to be a wagon would be about the same time as your new multi billion dollar sports and entertainment complex also known as the OC Vibe. Random idea I know, but 2026 is when it’s supposed to start opening and supposedly finished in 2029, boy would it be ideal to have a real good team during that stretch of years. The same stretch of years, Zegras will be 26-30 and Leo will be 22-26. So our oldest new age 1st round pick prospect will be 26, and our youngest will be whomever we draft in the first this year, plus Beckett and Leo at like 21-22.
This is not some blind faith that our gm is competent, he has shown to be a part of 2 competent rebuilds in the past, he has shown to be apart of 1-2 above average organizations in terms of drafting. We have a buttload of young picks and prospects just entering or recently entered our organization. We have a stop gap no nonsense coach, who seems like imo a good character guy, who actually cares about people. When you get people in charge who give a shit about you, it matters, even if rough around the edges, you want people who care. Greg seems like he actually cares. But whatever, you have us in theory heir apparent in the AHL, adjusting to becoming a HC in North America with less pressure than being the big boy head coach.
I just don’t see the doom and gloom this sub is so in love with being. Can we be frustrated after 7 years of losing? Of course, I just see a light at the end of the tunnel, and don’t want to be jumping the gun and traded for talent yet. Trading McT and Zegras for Petterson doesn’t make us a consistent playoff team. If we can sign a Marner / Miko in FA that would accelerate this rebuild a lot.
Cutter / Leo / marner
Zegras / Mct / Sennecke
Vats / strome / Terry
Killorn / gaucher / Colangelo
Would be a solid team to roll out 2 years from now, in Killorn and Stromes last years
LaCombe / Luneau
Minty / helleson (FA or gudas for 1-2 extension?)
Zelly / trouba (assume extension incoming)
I don’t know maybe im crazy, im just excited because the potential is there, and I don’t think Verbeek who was in the building when they hired Jon Cooper, who was also in the building (both times as asst GM) when they were the presidents trophy winners and got swept by Columbus in the first round…… and still didn’t fire cooper. Could you imagine this sub ? Swept by the 8 seed, after winning the presidents trophy, Stanley cup favorites. I fear for the safety of Jon cooper’s family.
All in all we have high end / top tier talent in the NHL and more on the way. We have a plethora of late first / early second / third round picks in the system or coming up.
If you wanna be an angry man yells at sky guy, that’s fine, but honestly it just screams lack of vision or critical thinking. Like rebuilds don’t always work, otherwise everyone would succeed in them. But we have a GM who said he wanted as many bullets as possible (draft picks) and he acquired those, said he wanted to build a fast physical team with skill. So he’s trying to do that, I assume he’s drafting to help the vision comes to fruition. Hence the 6’2” and taller dudes. Said hockey IQ is important, so drafting a mature smart team. He has a coach, I think he understands is critical in the development of the young guys, and even though we can’t point to tangible evidence, I gotta assume, Verbeek understands the importance of having the right developmental coach for this part of a rebuild. If Cronin is failing at development you HAVE to cut the cord. The fact he hasn’t, tells me, Cronin is living up to the standard Verbeek needs. Because no one knows how the locker room is, what’s being done positively or negatively mentally for these kids, show me it’s probably going better than we on this sub think.
Edit : also you keep bringing up were in leading the division or whatever when Verbeek came on, but fail to use point percentage, we had played like 6 more games than every other team that season. It was fools gold mate. And Verbeek gave the team a month, started playing worse, sold off the UFA’s … he did everything right. (This was meant for hockey duckie hahaah)
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