What are the Ducks doing?

[ohcomeonref]

It’s sad because they were fun to watch at the start of last year.

Don't remind us!

 

[StreetHawk]

Should Cronin be fired? Yay or Nay?

Do you think Cronin should be fired? Enough is enough. Yes I do he is hurting these kids development.

forums.hfboards.com

100% of HFDucks fans have voted yes for Cronin to be canned, an unprecedented level of agreement for anywhere on the internet.

See how much more time verbeek gives his first HC hire. It's not even 100 games for Cronin yet in the NHL. Also a bad look on Verbeek to have to hire his first HC hire after such a short period of time.

 

[winnipegger]

Oh Getzlaf where art thou

 

[HanSolo]

The Ducks are so funny. We often like to comment on the Sharks board how all Cutter Gauthier does is shoot mindlessly. Teammate wide open? Shoot. 90 feet from the goalie? Shoot.

Didn't watch last night I guess. Wide open net for him to shoot at? Pass.

 

[Bizz]

even though the drafting has been on point.

was with you up until this sentence. The Ducks have been probably the worst team at drafting in the last decade plus.

I mean seriously Carlsson over Fantilli?

Sennecke over Demidov and all those Defensemen?

these are the kinds of draft choices that keep teams out of the playoffs for longer than they should.

 

[HanSolo]

was with you up until this sentence. The Ducks have been probably the worst team at drafting in the last decade plus.

I mean seriously Carlsson over Fantilli?

Sennecke over Demidov and all those Defensemen?

these are the kinds of draft choices that keep teams out of the playoffs for longer than they should.

Yeah dude. Fantilli has clearly outperformed Carlsson with his near identical statline.

And please try telling me Carlsson has a better team and linemates.

 

[Boo Boo]

was with you up until this sentence. The Ducks have been probably the worst team at drafting in the last decade plus.

I mean seriously Carlsson over Fantilli?

Sennecke over Demidov and all those Defensemen?

these are the kinds of draft choices that keep teams out of the playoffs for longer than they should.

Both justifiable picks - I fail to see your point. And yes there were other future great players picked after both too

 

[FiveTacos]

Guys like McTavish, Carlsson, Gauthier are top 5 picks. Mintyukov is a top 10 pick. They need to learn to how produce. They need to show it as well.

They're also all 19-21 years old. And they don't have any veterans who are playing at a superstar caliber. So who's gonna be the impact player?

Good teams might break in a young player on D, or a young player or two on offense, but other guys are the ones carrying the load. They can live with a few inconsistencies or growing pains or mistakes of inexperience for one out of every 3 or 4 shifts. But the Ducks have at least one 1st or 2nd year guy on the ice on D every minute of the game, as well as several young forwards. They may be talented, they all show flashes, but guys that age are rarely capable of playing consistently enough to do the heavy lifting.

They're just gonna have to take some lumps right now, and we'll see who ultimately develops ... but does anyone really expect guys to be major impact players before they're 23? Carlsson's their best young player, has looked excellent at times, but even he's just barely scratching the surface of his talent. I've seen teams with multiple guys who eventually turned into stars, but the team sucked when they were young ... early 90s Nords were the best example.

If winning with talented 19-21 year olds were easy, playoff teams would be trading veterans for kids all the time.

was with you up until this sentence. The Ducks have been probably the worst team at drafting in the last decade plus.

I mean seriously Carlsson over Fantilli?

Anyone who still questions the Carlsson pick didn't watch him last year. They play different styles, but they're neck and neck at this point.

Sennecke over Demidov and all those Defensemen?

Way too early to make calls on the most recent draft. That said, Sennecke is off to a torrid start. And the Ducks sure aren't short on defense prospects.

 

[Devonator]

Duck fans, what is going on with Cutter? Is he going to get sent down?

 

[FiveTacos]

Duck fans, what is going on with Cutter? Is he going to get sent down?

Started out looking like a rookie, probably could have been sent down if he stayed like that. But with Zegras he's looked pretty good. That line is generating lots of chances and doing well on xG% (if you're into that sort of thing), but right now that line (and the entire team really) isn't finishing. It's probably been their best line since they got put together, so unless that changes I think Gauthier's staying up.

 

[Beukeboom Fan]

That's still gotta be one of the dumbest things online hockey fans parrot regularly.

Can you provide some context? Because while a retread might not be a home run hire, they likely at least have a track record of being successful at one point in the NHL. (Assuming we're not talking Eakins).

 

[WhatTheDuck]

Duck fans, what is going on with Cutter? Is he going to get sent down?

It's sort of hard to get an honest read on how these young guys are performing individually, when the team is too broken for anyone to really be in a position to succeed. But as stated above, Cutter seemed to start a bit slow and there was talk that maybe he should be sent down - not that he was playing terrible but perhaps could benefit from finding his scoring confidence at a lower level. However, there have been positive signs since he was put with Zegras and I can see the two of them clicking going forward.

If the team was playing well, and Cutter was struggling to score, it would be a different story. But no one is scoring when the team spends so much time bottled in their own end, he's far from the only one not producing.

 

[FiveTacos]

Can you provide some context? Because while a retread might not be a home run hire, they likely at least have a track record of being successful at one point in the NHL. (Assuming we're not talking Eakins).

I would argue that some retreads are actually good coaches who were previously in a lousy situation. Or they learn from the past and do it better the 2nd time; you can get better at a lot of things with experience, why not coaching? Hey, Bill Belichick was a "retread."

Of course most retreads were fired the first time because they weren't anything special. Is that better than a mystery box unknown? You're rolling the dice either way, I suppose ... probably a higher floor for a retread who has a little track record in the NHL than a newbie.

I do think Cronin's insistence on playing the man-to-man system does not seem to be working for this particular roster. If he insists on sticking with his system to the bitter end, I don't think he'll last.

 

[Clint Eastwood]

Can you provide some context? Because while a retread might not be a home run hire, they likely at least have a track record of being successful at one point in the NHL. (Assuming we're not talking Eakins).

Many hockey fans complain about the NHL being an "old boys club" and they're convinced that the same crop of 35-40 coaches get recycled throughout the league and that NHL executives and management are too stubborn to hire somebody new.

When you actually look at the head coaches in the league, most of them are on their first or 2nd stint as a head coach in the NHL.

Same criticism gets lobbed at GMs and again, most of them are on their first team or 2 and a certain section of fans act like they're all Lou Lamoriello.

 

[MrazeksVengeance]

Every time I watch them, it seems like the offensive play has been completely sucked out of their young talent, and they aren't making up for that defensively at all. Without any obvious downgrades on their roster, they are substantially worse than they were at the start of last year.

Is there some master plan going on where this is just growing pains in trying to change the way they play, has the coach lost the plot, or is the young talent simply overrated? Just about every player on their roster has shown high-level play at some point in their recent career, so I just can't wrap my head around how bad they are as a collective.

Ruining Dostál.

 

[hotcabbagesoup]

Played well and tough tonight. Fought for space and got to the net. Sometimes it isn't hard to outmuscle Werenski and his buddy Provorov but you still gotta do it (the Sharks couldnt do it).

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

They seem to be another Buffalo where they’re perpetually bad and picking high. You expect them to eventually turn it around with some of these very good young players, and they never do.

 

[HanSolo]

They seem to be another Buffalo where they’re perpetually bad and picking high. You expect them to eventually turn it around with some of these very good young players, and they never do.

I mean. Most of this youth core outside of Zegras was drafted in the last three years. The Ducks have reached a critical point where these kids really need to start making measureable improvements (not necessarily stars by the end of the year but at least significantly improved relative to last season) to avoid becoming a Buffalo and having to continue building out of the draft until they get the coaches, systems, and draft picks right. But they haven't crossed that point and they haven't been doing it long enough to say it's a perpetual problem.

The Ducks last made the playoffs in 2018.

There's been 6 drafts since then and the Ducks didn't start intentionally trying to build out of the draft until Verbeek took over in 2022 when he started trading vets Murray was hanging onto for futures. Murray wasn't trying to build out of the draft. His team just sucked.

 

[FiveTacos]

They seem to be another Buffalo where they’re perpetually bad and picking high. You expect them to eventually turn it around with some of these very good young players, and they never do.

Teams like that aren't going to get good until 2-3 players break out as stars, and a few more become really really good. But that doesn't usually happen when they're 19-21, it's when the bulk of your guys are getting to be 23+. When you have guys like Carlsson, Mintyukov, Zellweger, McTavish, Gauthier, etc. all 21 or under ... well as promising as they've all looked at various times, the reality is they're flawed and inconsistent at that age, so you're a couple years away still.

Zegras is the oldest of the group and even he's only 23. Even if he magically became a ppg player today, they'd still suck until a couple other guys emerge as legit stars. They have some good veterans, but no one who you'd count on as a core guy outside of Terry, but he's their best player instead of like 3rd or 4th best like he'd be on a playoff team.

Yes, a few guys jump in and quickly become core stars at 22, but that's not the norm, even for high picks.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

I mean. Most of this youth core outside of Zegras was drafted in the last three years. The Ducks have reached a critical point where these kids really need to start making measureable improvements (not necessarily stars by the end of the year but at least significantly improved relative to last season) to avoid becoming a Buffalo and having to continue building out of the draft until they get the coaches, systems, and draft picks right. But they haven't crossed that point and they haven't been doing it long enough to say it's a perpetual problem.

The Ducks last made the playoffs in 2018.

There's been 6 drafts since then and the Ducks didn't start intentionally trying to build out of the draft until Verbeek took over in 2022 when he started trading vets Murray was hanging onto for futures. Murray wasn't trying to build out of the draft. His team just sucked.

I guess, but even you look at 2020 where they picked high and took Drysdale, and then traded him for a younger player picked in the same range, so they voluntarily chose to reset that a little bit. And for 2021 there are still players like McTavish, Zellweger, Patujov, Hinds. Even 2019 produced 3 guys who've played NHL games besides Zegras (2 of which look likely to play at least a few hundred games), so they've been at this since 2019 in my estimation. If they choose to focus on the ones from the last 3 drafts, it shows that the efforts from before then when they were also rebuilding weren't completely successful.

I wouldn't put them in Buffalo territory yet, but I remember talking about them as one of the best prospect pools in 2020 and 2021, and here we still are again with this.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Teams like that aren't going to get good until 2-3 players break out as stars, and a few more become really really good. But that doesn't usually happen when they're 19-21, it's when the bulk of your guys are getting to be 23+. When you have guys like Carlsson, Mintyukov, Zellweger, McTavish, Gauthier, etc. all 21 or under ... well as promising as they've all looked at various times, the reality is they're flawed and inconsistent at that age, so you're a couple years away still.

Zegras is the oldest of the group and even he's only 23. Even if he magically became a ppg player today, they'd still suck until a couple other guys emerge as legit stars. They have some good veterans, but no one who you'd count on as a core guy outside of Terry, but he's their best player instead of like 3rd or 4th best like he'd be on a playoff team.

Yes, a few guys jump in and quickly become core stars at 22, but that's not the norm, even for high picks.

I get your point, but I feel like they started this in 2019, and now here we are hearing how 2022 and 2023 and 2024 are the big years for the rebuild. That we aren't saying that 2019 and 2020 were the big years (or at least a major part of it) suggests things went wrong, and there was a setback.

It's a long time to wait. I'm not saying it's the wrong strategy. In fact, I think it's the only viable strategy, but I'd be a little impatient at this point and worried about if this thing ever turns around into a playoff team, let alone contender.

 

[Rabid Ranger]

Greg Cronin is a good example of why teams hire “retreads”

Never go full retread.

 

[HanSolo]

I guess, but even you look at 2020 where they picked high and took Drysdale, and then traded him for a younger player picked in the same range, so they voluntarily chose to reset that a little bit. And for 2021 there are still players like McTavish, Zellweger, Patujov, Hinds. Even 2019 produced 3 guys who've played NHL games besides Zegras (2 of which look likely to play at least a few hundred games), so they've been at this since 2019 in my estimation. If they choose to focus on the ones from the last 3 drafts, it shows that the efforts from before then when they were also rebuilding weren't completely successful.

I wouldn't put them in Buffalo territory yet, but I remember talking about them as one of the best prospect pools in 2020 and 2021, and here we still are again with this.

I don't know that I'd necessarily say they've been "at this" that long. Drysdale had good promise but his development has been slowed by injuries and, I'd argue, a lack of instinct and IQ needed to grow his game at this level to reach the upper limits of his potential. Maybe I'm wrong but it's not a weird thing to whiff on at 6th overall. Happens all the time. Zegras was a smart pick at 9th overall but again, that wasn't exactly the Ducks being catastrophically bad and in a bona fide rebuild. They were on the downswing from the decline that started in 2017-18.

The 2021 draftees are still on proper track for a longer development phase. McTavish and Zellweger are 21. Some players hit their primes at 22-23. There's still room for growth and development before they realistically just settle into what they are.

Zegras is a bigger problem. He was a good value pick at 9th overall. Had a historic WJC, a strong college season, and a strong first two years on a dogshit team. Ever since the Ducks mandated that he work on his defensive play, his creativity and general effectiveness with the puck have taken a hit. he's been looking better lately relative to his teammates that arguably manage the puck worse than every other team in the league, and that's been hurting his production but he's also not nearly as dynamic as he should be at this stage of his career.

Other guys taken past the first round showed promise and either through poor development or limited actual ability/adaptability, haven't been able to take the next step (guys like Pastujov and Perreault as a couple examples).

All that said, this is their first crack at trying to escape a rebuild through an emerging youth core. Cronin has not been showing competence in developing that youth core, but they haven't aged out to where the rebuild gets reset or extended with younger guys getting phased out. The closest guys to being "phased out" are Zegras and Terry due to age, but Terry is a solid top 6 forward in his own right.

 

[FiveTacos]

I get your point, but I feel like they started this in 2019, and now here we are hearing how 2022 and 2023 and 2024 are the big years for the rebuild. That we aren't saying that 2019 and 2020 were the big years (or at least a major part of it) suggests things went wrong, and there was a setback.

I think the problem was under Murray at the time, he still had illusions of a one or two year downturn and a quick retool. They didn't start the true teardown and piling up picks like a rebuilding team should (trading Manson, Lindholm, Rakell) until Verbeek came in in '22.

Zegras was the first high pick, but I don't think the rebuild was on in earnest at that point, I think they genuinely thought they'd bounce back. Lke many teams coming off a nice stretch of years, they tried to tread water for too long.

 

[qc14]

Yet another prime exhibit in the "you should never go full teardown rebuild" case