Can Anaheim turn things around this year?
The new NHL season is only a short while away from getting underway, and the Anaheim Ducks have nowhere to go but up. After finishing the season last year with the worst record overall, Anaheim has their work cut out for them.
However, they have taken steps forward this offseason to try and make sure that nothing like last season happens again. First, they replaced head coach Dallas Ekins with Greg Cronin, who should be able to get the best out of his young team.
They also drafted Leo Carlsson second overall out of the Swedish Hockey League, and he should make an immediate impact if he makes the Anaheim roster. But it was the signings as well that signaled a sense of forwardness for Anaheim.
Cronin spoke about this and why he is excited about the coming season.
"At this particular moment with the Ducks, there's a real influx of new talent coming in and my skill set as a coach would mesh really well with what (general manager) Pat (Verbeek) is trying to do here in terms of building a championship team," Cronin said. "You've got to have a healthy balance, but it starts with your habits, and if your practice habits aren't good, they're going to follow you right into the game."
Anaheim has a ton of young talent within its system. But just on the active roster as well. This includes newly signed Troy Terry, Mason McTavish, Jamie Drysdale and Trevor Zegras. Technically, Zegras is a free agent still, but he is restricted, and the two sides are expected to come to terms soon.
Cronin addressed that the team needs to be better on offense this coming season. He said that he has some ideas but that things will change this coming year.
"Scoring is the most coveted skill, right?" Cronin said. "Guys that score goals get paid the most for a reason. They impact the most. In the absence of having a natural goal-scorer, you've got to have community scoring, team scoring. … So we've got to try and design a system that's going to invite that team scoring mentality, and I have some ideas, but there's some things that we need to do to recruit more scoring into our team because we're not going to win a lot of games if we score at the rate we scored last year."
All in all, this is an exciting time for the Ducks. They can’t really get any worse than they were last season, so there is hope for a brighter future.
Anaheim will likely not be a playoff contender next year. But as long as they are building toward the future, everything will be fine.