After naming Joel Quenneville the 12th head coach in franchise history on Thursday, the Ducks are making additional changes to their coaching staff.
On Saturday, they announced that assistant coaches Brent Thompson and Rich Clune would not be retained for the 2025-26 season. Assistant coach Tim Army and goaltending coach Peter Budaj will be retained for the upcoming season, per a team source.
Thompson, who was the Ducks for two seasons, was in charge of defensemen deployment and the penalty kill. The Ducks finished with the second-worst penalty kill in 2023-24 (72.42%) and the fourth-worst penalty kill in 2924-25 (74.19%).
Ducks GM Pat Verbeek on Quenneville Hiring
Following the news conference to announce <a href="https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/anaheim-ducks/latest-news/ducks-name-joel-quenneville-head-coach">Joel Quenneville being named the 12th Ducks head coach in franchise history</a>, Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek spoke to local media. Below is a full transcript of the media scrum (Questions and answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity):
In his first and only season with the Ducks, Clune was responsible for power play direction and personnel. The Ducks finished the season with the worst power play percentage in the league (11.76%).
Special teams were a focal point for Anaheim, with general manager Pat Verbeek stating after this past season’s trade deadline that they could have been a playoff team with average special teams.
Quenneville will now have free rein to choose his own personnel to dictate both the power play and the penalty kill.
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