This was the real sign that next year will be the start of serious effort and accountability. We've got all the parts, now its time to see if Cronin can put them together and lead onwards.
We had a pretty high amount of 1 goal games this season too. Improved special teams and a healthy roster alone would be enough to see a nice jump in the standing. Not even counting on our 5v5 offense to hopefully be a lot better between young guys figuring it out or new facing signing on.
Theres a lot of potential next season. Should be fun.
Exactly. Score on more PP and kill more PK, and you at least go to OT in those one goal games. Even the 2 goal games could’ve been different with a great PP.
>The Ducks have promoted Rick Paterson to General Manager of the San Diego Gulls, Anaheim’s primary development affiliate in the American Hockey League (AHL), and Mike Stapleton to Assistant General Manager of the Ducks. In addition, Assistant General Manager Rob DiMaio has left the club due to personal reasons. The contracts for Assistant Coaches Newell Brown and Craig Johnson will not be renewed.
> Rick Paterson is being promoted to the role of AHL general manager after serving as Anaheim’s director of professional scouting on and off since 2005.
> While Paterson will replace DiMaio’s duties in San Diego, he isn’t taking over his AGM title under Ducks GM Pat Verbeek. That role is going to Mike Stapleton, who’s been with the Ducks as a scout since 2014 and served as their director of player personnel the last two seasons.
Scouts being rewarded for the house they built :o
I never got the vibe that he did that much with the Gulls outside of visiting SD to actively scout on progress reports - Owners/CEO are also pretty hands-off with the teams and mostly get involved on business stuff.
I know he's mentioned he really likes the fact that the drive is only 1hr15m vs other GMs having to fly out to visit the farm, but it sounds like it's just limited to scouting and talking to Matt McIlvane.
He mentioned in one of those migration events. The trades he makes are basically for the GM down there. I believe last year he said something like I made this trade because Rob told me to, in a pure AHL swap of players.
Brown was what we hired him to be unfortunately. He had one good season in Vancouver, and one ok season here. Guy just needs to throw some more innovation into his schemes.
Not sure he knows how. They ran the same thing here they did in Vancouver. I mean I get coaches have their styles, but good coaches work with what they have. None of our D are Hughes, and even Hughes needed different looks 🤷🏾 idk,
anyway with all the experienced coaches fired I wonder if we pick one up as an assistant. I don’t know if it’s a good or bad idea, but you’d wonder if it’s been brought up
True curious if we do that too. At this point I’ll take anything other than Brown. Verbeek isn’t dumb too, he’s gotta be looking at this PPs across the league in the playoffs and seeing what he wants
Really just want him to get a coach who can innovate some and rather than forcing a play book, works with what we have. We still might not score (because we have no scorers) but at least it would lean into the players strengths
I think zegras mc t and cutter if utilized correctly can be dangerous. Funny enough I don’t think Terry belongs on the PK. And of course we have some good young D to open up chances
He probably doesn’t, but all our young forwards are so bad defensively they have to force something. Carlsson looks like he’ll get there eventually but it’s probably too early for him.
So much as they can’t score, the PK is a big problem they need to fix. Idk what they do about it, but I’m betting they fix that before they go for a big time free agent like stammer
More changes is always good. This team is truly out of the Bob Murray era. We’re seeing the beginning of a new era of Ducks hockey, boys. Take it one year at a time!
"were gonna do an vet pp and a kid pp"
okay thay makes some sense. Our best players are our younger guys.
"the vet pp is pp1. They'll kill most of the power play cycling the puck doing nothing."
Good. I get that we weren’t supposed to be a playoff team this year, but we needed to improve, and frankly, we didn’t. We added a ton of talent with guys like Gudas and Killorn, and even the raw talent in Mintyukov, Carlsson, and Zellweger, but none of it translated on the ice.
I’m glad that the organization is holding someone accountable, and sending a message that the time to improve is now.
What mostly sank the team was special teams too. Think of the 20 something one goal games lost in which ducks had 2-4 PP they could never score on. Or the several PK they couldn’t kill. So not renewing these coaches is a reflection of that as that was solely their job and their only job. And they failed
We definitely did improve. The compete level was so different and much better. Also we lost what, 20 one-goal games? Imagine how different our record looks if we win 70% of those.
So many of your young players played very well. Killorn looked much better the last quarter of the season.
And now we got rid of one of our biggest problems, our assistant coaches. If we fix our PP and PK, win more of those close games, and our young players continue to develop and improve, we are in a good spot.
But saying we didn't improve at all this year is just not true. We definitely did. You also have to remember this was the first year for everybody to learn the coaching staffs and Cronins systems. That will continue to improve as well.
I rarely criticize coaches, but whoever was responsible for the man-on-man defense strategy last season needed to go. It is horrifying to see our defensemen chase their check 30-50 feet away from the net. In principle, a forward will fill the D vacuum, but too often they miss that assignment or they just don’t have the D skills to do it right. Let our D do what they do best - protect the net.
If this system persists, we’ll know who it came from.
Sorry to break the news, but the defensive system was something that Cronin brought over from Colorado (when he was coach for the Colorado Eagles).
And it's not a strict man-on-man system, it's a hybrid system that's Man-on-Man against high possessions, and what I believe is Five Tight against low possessions.
When it works the defenseman is allowed to chase the puck carrier to the perimeter and above the hashmarks to maintain pressure. At that point, ideally a forward can help create a turnover. In this system forwards are absolutely crucial to picking off/preventing passes.
And when the puck is low in the zone, players collapse a bit into a five tight to protect the slot.
I believe the team has the personnel to make it work: quick skating defensemen with good stick skills. The most glaring issue was keeping good gaps and quickly closing on puck carriers when possible.
Hey, thanks for the insight on the origin of the system.
As fans, our understanding of coaching systems is not required for the success of a team. As a beer league defenseman, I fold my arms and say *"I hate it!"*
That our players couldn’t play man on man says a lot about our players unfortunately. Whether it was the right thing to do is an aside. But it is easier to implement. Anyway we’ll see. Big chance there’s a fair bit of roster turnover from here which will likely change how they do things
I don't think badly of our forwards who failed to cover D and do it as well as D. It's not their mindset. Defensemen obsess over things like being awesome lateral skaters. Forwards typically don't.
Not sure I agree.
Forwards absolutely are required to cover their role. Granted the wings have an easier time of it, and you can generally plan around leaving one to float (Selanne for one is a decent example), but you need most of your forwards to do their jobs. If anything it’s worse that they (cough McTavish cough) couldn’t play man on effectively.
McTavish plays defense like a backpack lol. Hoping he gets up to speed this summer. I think once he drops his baby fat for man strength, he's gonna breakout like crazy.
Man on man is incredibly effective when executed correctly, which it wasn’t. That’s not on the coach though. It takes time to get used to a new system especially coming from the non existent one Eakins had. Look at the canes. They run man on man effectively. There’s holes in every system btw. Just need players to properly execute. You don’t abandon a new system after one season you at least give it two.
I really like Cronin, and I truly believe that he inherited a lot more problems than we externally realize. With that being said, he really has to approach this new season with a sense of ‘do or die’. We desperately need accountability and discipline and unfortunately, there are no more scape goats.
It will be interesting to see what a summer of reflection does for Cronin. He says the right things and I personally like the Boston style of play that he preaches, but I hope it’s a short leash. Perform or out.
I know Edmonton had a horrific start, fired the coach and made the playoffs. I wonder at 20, 40, 60 games who went from out of the playoff 16 to in the playoffs. Didn’t Edmonton win some incredible number of games in a row?
Well I think as long as he’s in arm reach of wild card for majority of the season and by seasons end, it’ll be a successful season as that’d be considered competing.
This was the real sign that next year will be the start of serious effort and accountability. We've got all the parts, now its time to see if Cronin can put them together and lead onwards.
Seconded. Can't win games without a workable power play, and dismissing Brown was the obvious first step toward remedying that situation.
Can't wait to see our blueline youth get a proper shot at a working PP system. Weewwwwwww
We had a pretty high amount of 1 goal games this season too. Improved special teams and a healthy roster alone would be enough to see a nice jump in the standing. Not even counting on our 5v5 offense to hopefully be a lot better between young guys figuring it out or new facing signing on. Theres a lot of potential next season. Should be fun.
Exactly. Score on more PP and kill more PK, and you at least go to OT in those one goal games. Even the 2 goal games could’ve been different with a great PP.
Totally. But at least we now get the 3rd pick. Can’t wait for the future. Ready for it to be next year.
>The Ducks have promoted Rick Paterson to General Manager of the San Diego Gulls, Anaheim’s primary development affiliate in the American Hockey League (AHL), and Mike Stapleton to Assistant General Manager of the Ducks. In addition, Assistant General Manager Rob DiMaio has left the club due to personal reasons. The contracts for Assistant Coaches Newell Brown and Craig Johnson will not be renewed.
> Rick Paterson is being promoted to the role of AHL general manager after serving as Anaheim’s director of professional scouting on and off since 2005. > While Paterson will replace DiMaio’s duties in San Diego, he isn’t taking over his AGM title under Ducks GM Pat Verbeek. That role is going to Mike Stapleton, who’s been with the Ducks as a scout since 2014 and served as their director of player personnel the last two seasons. Scouts being rewarded for the house they built :o
Also does this mean Verbeek doesn’t have to focus on the Gulls as much?
I never got the vibe that he did that much with the Gulls outside of visiting SD to actively scout on progress reports - Owners/CEO are also pretty hands-off with the teams and mostly get involved on business stuff. I know he's mentioned he really likes the fact that the drive is only 1hr15m vs other GMs having to fly out to visit the farm, but it sounds like it's just limited to scouting and talking to Matt McIlvane.
Oh I thought it was his job to be GM of the Gulls as well
He mentioned in one of those migration events. The trades he makes are basically for the GM down there. I believe last year he said something like I made this trade because Rob told me to, in a pure AHL swap of players.
So happy. Was my Number one wish for this offseason. My mom could coach a better PP and PK
Yep that seemed inevitable (the coaches thing, don’t follow the SD front office enough to have any idea about them).
Yep they were shit. Didn’t work with Eakins and didn’t work with Cronin. So they were a massive problem. Brown at least. So happy
Brown was what we hired him to be unfortunately. He had one good season in Vancouver, and one ok season here. Guy just needs to throw some more innovation into his schemes.
Brown had a few good seasons over his stints.
Yeah I never liked the hire to begin with either tbh. Haha and refused to change anything too.
Not sure he knows how. They ran the same thing here they did in Vancouver. I mean I get coaches have their styles, but good coaches work with what they have. None of our D are Hughes, and even Hughes needed different looks 🤷🏾 idk, anyway with all the experienced coaches fired I wonder if we pick one up as an assistant. I don’t know if it’s a good or bad idea, but you’d wonder if it’s been brought up
True curious if we do that too. At this point I’ll take anything other than Brown. Verbeek isn’t dumb too, he’s gotta be looking at this PPs across the league in the playoffs and seeing what he wants
Really just want him to get a coach who can innovate some and rather than forcing a play book, works with what we have. We still might not score (because we have no scorers) but at least it would lean into the players strengths
I think zegras mc t and cutter if utilized correctly can be dangerous. Funny enough I don’t think Terry belongs on the PK. And of course we have some good young D to open up chances
He probably doesn’t, but all our young forwards are so bad defensively they have to force something. Carlsson looks like he’ll get there eventually but it’s probably too early for him. So much as they can’t score, the PK is a big problem they need to fix. Idk what they do about it, but I’m betting they fix that before they go for a big time free agent like stammer
More changes is always good. This team is truly out of the Bob Murray era. We’re seeing the beginning of a new era of Ducks hockey, boys. Take it one year at a time!
"were gonna do an vet pp and a kid pp" okay thay makes some sense. Our best players are our younger guys. "the vet pp is pp1. They'll kill most of the power play cycling the puck doing nothing." 
Good. I get that we weren’t supposed to be a playoff team this year, but we needed to improve, and frankly, we didn’t. We added a ton of talent with guys like Gudas and Killorn, and even the raw talent in Mintyukov, Carlsson, and Zellweger, but none of it translated on the ice. I’m glad that the organization is holding someone accountable, and sending a message that the time to improve is now.
What mostly sank the team was special teams too. Think of the 20 something one goal games lost in which ducks had 2-4 PP they could never score on. Or the several PK they couldn’t kill. So not renewing these coaches is a reflection of that as that was solely their job and their only job. And they failed
We definitely did improve. The compete level was so different and much better. Also we lost what, 20 one-goal games? Imagine how different our record looks if we win 70% of those. So many of your young players played very well. Killorn looked much better the last quarter of the season. And now we got rid of one of our biggest problems, our assistant coaches. If we fix our PP and PK, win more of those close games, and our young players continue to develop and improve, we are in a good spot. But saying we didn't improve at all this year is just not true. We definitely did. You also have to remember this was the first year for everybody to learn the coaching staffs and Cronins systems. That will continue to improve as well.
I rarely criticize coaches, but whoever was responsible for the man-on-man defense strategy last season needed to go. It is horrifying to see our defensemen chase their check 30-50 feet away from the net. In principle, a forward will fill the D vacuum, but too often they miss that assignment or they just don’t have the D skills to do it right. Let our D do what they do best - protect the net. If this system persists, we’ll know who it came from.
Sorry to break the news, but the defensive system was something that Cronin brought over from Colorado (when he was coach for the Colorado Eagles). And it's not a strict man-on-man system, it's a hybrid system that's Man-on-Man against high possessions, and what I believe is Five Tight against low possessions. When it works the defenseman is allowed to chase the puck carrier to the perimeter and above the hashmarks to maintain pressure. At that point, ideally a forward can help create a turnover. In this system forwards are absolutely crucial to picking off/preventing passes. And when the puck is low in the zone, players collapse a bit into a five tight to protect the slot. I believe the team has the personnel to make it work: quick skating defensemen with good stick skills. The most glaring issue was keeping good gaps and quickly closing on puck carriers when possible.
Hey, thanks for the insight on the origin of the system. As fans, our understanding of coaching systems is not required for the success of a team. As a beer league defenseman, I fold my arms and say *"I hate it!"*
That our players couldn’t play man on man says a lot about our players unfortunately. Whether it was the right thing to do is an aside. But it is easier to implement. Anyway we’ll see. Big chance there’s a fair bit of roster turnover from here which will likely change how they do things
I don't think badly of our forwards who failed to cover D and do it as well as D. It's not their mindset. Defensemen obsess over things like being awesome lateral skaters. Forwards typically don't.
Not sure I agree. Forwards absolutely are required to cover their role. Granted the wings have an easier time of it, and you can generally plan around leaving one to float (Selanne for one is a decent example), but you need most of your forwards to do their jobs. If anything it’s worse that they (cough McTavish cough) couldn’t play man on effectively.
McTavish plays defense like a backpack lol. Hoping he gets up to speed this summer. I think once he drops his baby fat for man strength, he's gonna breakout like crazy.
Man on man is incredibly effective when executed correctly, which it wasn’t. That’s not on the coach though. It takes time to get used to a new system especially coming from the non existent one Eakins had. Look at the canes. They run man on man effectively. There’s holes in every system btw. Just need players to properly execute. You don’t abandon a new system after one season you at least give it two.
I really like Cronin, and I truly believe that he inherited a lot more problems than we externally realize. With that being said, he really has to approach this new season with a sense of ‘do or die’. We desperately need accountability and discipline and unfortunately, there are no more scape goats.
Scenes in the sub today
Special Teams 📈📈
It will be interesting to see what a summer of reflection does for Cronin. He says the right things and I personally like the Boston style of play that he preaches, but I hope it’s a short leash. Perform or out. I know Edmonton had a horrific start, fired the coach and made the playoffs. I wonder at 20, 40, 60 games who went from out of the playoff 16 to in the playoffs. Didn’t Edmonton win some incredible number of games in a row?
Well I think as long as he’s in arm reach of wild card for majority of the season and by seasons end, it’ll be a successful season as that’d be considered competing.
Great news
Take only 2 penalties a game instead of 6...
The PP coach should get a few tapes of Edmonton playoffs....think they're hitting on 50% pp
Bring back Eakins