Confirmed with Link: Ducks fire Greg Cronin

[MallardMan]

I don't think this has been asked yet in this thread:

Who do you think was a better coach, Eakins or Cronin? Not that either was good.

I actually think it may have been Eakins. While the defense was bad under both, at least Eakins let them play an exciting brand of hockey in the O zone. I also think his bad teams had less talent than this year's team and the net minders had a better season this year than pretty much any during Eakin's tenure.

From a strictly "refs on the ice" view, Eakins.

There is a reason the league clearly hated Cronin's teams.
The penalty imbalance against the Orange was insane over the last 2 seasons.

 

[Terry Yake]

From a strictly "refs on the ice" view, Eakins.

There is a reason the league clearly hated Cronin's teams.
The penalty imbalance against the Orange was insane over the last 2 seasons.

that's been a thing long before cronin

 

[Hockey Duckie]

I don't think this has been asked yet in this thread:

Who do you think was a better coach, Eakins or Cronin? Not that either was good.

I actually think it may have been Eakins. While the defense was bad under both, at least Eakins let them play an exciting brand of hockey in the O zone. I also think his bad teams had less talent than this year's team and the net minders had a better season this year than pretty much any during Eakin's tenure.

What I came away with between Eakins' last season and Cronin's first season was that Eakins was able to change his game play to improve the team's chances of earning points. Posters were making fun about how Eakins would allow 40+ Shots against per game around the 25th game mark of the season. Yet, when I was tracking the Shots Against per game, I noticed we started generating more points when Eakins implemented the OK Corral type of game. Eakins knew he didn't have a lot of talent on the team and the defensive talent was severely lacking. So he rode our netminders to prop us up while he allowed our forwards to counter. In essence, Eakins was elevating his team's play to generate more point production in the standings.

Cronin was gifted a better defense and added two more top-6 forwards in Killorn as well as Carlsson to his roster. There was a 38 goal differential (GD) improvement under Cronin, but only a 1-point improvement in the standings. That made me say, "Wut?!"

Despite a terrible defense in 2022-23, Eakins was still able to get great contributions from Z (65 pts), Terry (61 pts), and Fowler hit another career high in scoring with 48 points as our third best scorer on the team. Mac's rookie season had him net 43 points, as he bounced around from 2LW, 4C, 3C, and top-2C.

The year prior, 2021-22, Eakins got great production from Terry (37g and 67 pts), Z had 61 pts as a rookie, Fowler hit a career high of 42 points, and RD Drysdale had 32 points a 19-year old rookie. What this means is that the production of the youth and vet Fowler were sustainable over two seasons. Drysdale practically missed the 2022-23 season.

Cronin's offense doesn't have this type of consistency besides the consistency of not producing at high levels. In Cronin's two seasons as head coach, he's got one player hit 60 points in Vatrano. This season, Vatrano only netted 45 points.

This year, there were so much talent depth that I think it's better than the 2021-22 season, but Cronin didn't know how to manage all that talent well. We had to rotate d-men in LaCombe (yes, he was in a rotation to start the season), Minty, Zell, and Helleson. Cutter and Mac were bounced up and down the lineup. Colangelo was plucked out of the AHL and into the NHL, but was made into a grinder on his first two call-ups. On his third call-up, Colangelo was put into a scoring role and produced 9g +2a in 20 games!

The oddity is that Cronin's team this season was never in top-3 in the Pacific at the All-Star/4 Nations break like the 2021-22 team was. Cronin's team was 9 points away from the last wild card spot at the 4 Nations break.

Anaheim should have done more this year if it had a better head coach.

 

[AngelDuck]

There it is

 

[zegrassyknoll]

I'd love to have Eakins on the staff to pull guys like Leo/Z/Minty aside and help them 1:1 to work through some slumps.

But I don't think he can coach a team.

 

[MMC]

At this point I don't even care if the next coach gets us into the playoffs, I just hope he does enough to where Eakins or Cronin are never mentioned on this board again

 

[zegrassyknoll]

At this point I don't even care if the next coach gets us into the playoffs, I just hope he does enough to where Eakins or Cronin are never mentioned on this board again

This has some serious monkey's paw potential

 

[Terry Yake]

fun going back and reading our thoughts on cronin when he was first hired

Confirmed with Link: Thread 'Ducks hire Greg Cronin as head coach'

Jun 5, 2023

• MMC
• Replies: 343
• Forum: Anaheim Ducks

• 

 

[Unholy]

fun going back and reading our thoughts on cronin when he was first hired

Confirmed with Link: Thread 'Ducks hire Greg Cronin as head coach'

Jun 5, 2023

• MMC
• Replies: 343
• Forum: Anaheim Ducks

• 

He was being talked up quite a bit from Avs fans. Wouldn’t be surprised if he maybe goes back there in some capacity

 

[Mr Rogers]

He was being talked up quite a bit from Avs fans. Wouldn’t be surprised if he maybe goes back there in some capacity

Friedman mentioned that he's highly thought of by some of his former players and i think the Avs org in general. I think he mentioned that possibility actually.

 

[Terry Yake]

He was being talked up quite a bit from Avs fans. Wouldn’t be surprised if he maybe goes back there in some capacity

as far away from anaheim as possible please

 

[Static]

fun going back and reading our thoughts on cronin when he was first hired

Confirmed with Link: Thread 'Ducks hire Greg Cronin as head coach'

Jun 5, 2023

• MMC
• Replies: 343
• Forum: Anaheim Ducks

• 

So much optimism, so little return. Also, cannot believe that was two years ago.

 

[Mr Rogers]

So much optimism, so little return. Also, cannot believe that was two years ago.

Less than that even haha. I was in a terrible work situation when Cro was hired and especially with how the Ducks played with him i don't look back at June 2023 very fondly lol

 

[goonsaredumb]

fun going back and reading our thoughts on cronin when he was first hired

Confirmed with Link: Thread 'Ducks hire Greg Cronin as head coach'

Jun 5, 2023

• MMC
• Replies: 343
• Forum: Anaheim Ducks

• 

I remember Avs fans loved him and Isles fans hated him, I didn't know how to feel with the mixed reaction from fans of teams with experience with him but I remember that first press conference he did he was saying all the right things and that made me feel better about the pick, should've listened to those Isles fans.

 

[Kariya 9]

I remember Avs fans loved him and Isles fans hated him, I didn't know how to feel with the mixed reaction from fans of teams with experience with him but I remember that first press conference he did he was saying all the right things and that made me feel better about the pick, should've listened to those Isles fans.

In hindsight, we really should have taken his hailing of Carlyle and Milbury as his coaching idols as more of a red flag.

 

[Mr Rogers]

fun going back and reading our thoughts on cronin when he was first hired

Confirmed with Link: Thread 'Ducks hire Greg Cronin as head coach'

Jun 5, 2023

• MMC
• Replies: 343
• Forum: Anaheim Ducks

• 

Something i just remembered reading this is that Verbeek also interviewed Carbery and Travis Green - Green was a finalist apparently even. So he did choose some good candidates to interview but ultimately the wrong person for the job was chosen and a candidate who was far inferior to all of them

 

[Hockey Duckie]

At this point I don't even care if the next coach gets us into the playoffs, I just hope he does enough to where Eakins or Cronin are never mentioned on this board again

You do know what trolling is, right?

 

[Son of Gib]

I don't think this has been asked yet in this thread:

Who do you think was a better coach, Eakins or Cronin? Not that either was good.

I actually think it may have been Eakins. While the defense was bad under both, at least Eakins let them play an exciting brand of hockey in the O zone. I also think his bad teams had less talent than this year's team and the net minders had a better season this year than pretty much any during Eakin's tenure.

I feel like it's a question of, what's better, nothing or bad? I guess nothing is better.

 

[MallardMan]

that's been a thing long before cronin

Well,something was clearly askew last season:

 

[la patineuse]

This is a good point I hadn’t even thought of. Yeah it’s super weird that the exit interviews with the media were to take place over two days, and some of the most obvious guys that you’d want to hear from never gave one. I suppose they were scheduled for day two, but really strange that there was no media availability for all the main vets (Terry, Strome, Vatrano, Killorn) and more importantly Gudas. How does the captain of the team not talk to the media after the season?

Are the exit interviews with the media or with GMPV? I always got the feeling it was the latter like a year-end wrap up with the players to give them feedback and what the GM may want to set as goals for the upcoming season and also for the players to give their input to the GM. So maybe there were exit interviews with all of the players, but not all of the players spoke to the media or were made available to the media.

 

[Bender66]

Well,something was clearly askew last season:View attachment 1019350

He was paying for showing up the refs early on that year when he got ejected in that one game pretty early in the season. It was obvious the word was passed around the ref group chat to make an example.od the new coach in the league who dared to question their authority

 

[ADHB]

Are the exit interviews with the media or with GMPV? I always got the feeling it was the latter like a year-end wrap up with the players to give them feedback and what the GM may want to set as goals for the upcoming season and also for the players to give their input to the GM. So maybe there were exit interviews with all of the players, but not all of the players spoke to the media or were made available to the media.

There's two different things, like you said, the meetings with management and then end of the year media stuff. But usually all the players, or at least all the players any reporter would be interested in talking to, would be available to talk to them. That, plus the fact that one of the beat writers specifically said the player interviews would be split over two days. But no one spoke other than Verbeek on the second day. Not sure what message you can draw from it, but like I said it just seems weird that the guys you would expect to hear from were never made available.

The only guess I can make is that those guys were supposed to do their interviews with reporters on day 2, but after the coach news, they cancelled it all. Maybe so they wouldn't be asked about it, or because they only wanted Verbeek commenting on it, etc.

 

[la patineuse]

There was never any question that he developed our young players or that he was a good person for them to be around daily. With Cronin, that was constantly at the forefront of concern.

I remember Luke Schenn having some very good words about how Eakins helped resurrect his NHL career. I don't have access to The Athletic anymore, but there was an article about how Carlyle basically told Schenn he was done in the NHL (goes to show you how abrasive Carlyle was) and Schenn was waived to San Diego. Eakins met with him right away and told Schenn although he probably didn't expect to be in San Diego, if Schenn helped the Gulls win some games, Eakins said he would do his best to help Schenn get back to the NHL.

 

[Dr Johnny Fever]

I remember Luke Schenn having some very good words about how Eakins helped resurrect his NHL career. I don't have access to The Athletic anymore, but there was an article about how Carlyle basically told Schenn he was done in the NHL (goes to show you how abrasive Carlyle was) and Schenn was waived to San Diego. Eakins met with him right away and told Schenn although he probably didn't expect to be in San Diego, if Schenn helped the Gulls win some games, Eakins said he would do his best to help Schenn get back to the NHL.

Yeah, RC was an absolute shithead about how he treated Schenn. Eakins actually worked with him to minimize Schenn's drives to SD.

 

[mightyquack]

I don't think this has been asked yet in this thread:

Who do you think was a better coach, Eakins or Cronin? Not that either was good.

I actually think it may have been Eakins. While the defense was bad under both, at least Eakins let them play an exciting brand of hockey in the O zone. I also think his bad teams had less talent than this year's team and the net minders had a better season this year than pretty much any during Eakin's tenure.

Doesn't really matter, both of them are far below average NHL coaches.