Reviewing Greg Cronin’s First Year as Ducks Head Coach

One year ago today, the Ducks officially hired Greg Cronin as their head coach. What has he accomplished so far and what can he improve on?

It was this time last year that Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek and newly-appointed head coach Greg Cronin held up a Ducks jersey with “Cronin” and No. 23 emblazoned on the back of it and posed for media.

Both bore ear-to-ear grins as a new era in Ducks hockey embarked with the 11th head coach in franchise history.

 Cronin was proactive in getting to know his players, making trips to Colorado, Connecticut, New York and Toronto along other places to visit with some of the players that would be under his helm for the 2023-24 season.

Accountability was a big theme that many players brought up during training camp and that was something that continued into the regular season. Things had been too casual under former head coach Dallas Eakins and this new voice in the locker room would whip things into shape.

The season started off well. Although Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale missed most of training camp due to contract disputes, the Ducks were still competitive. Despite losing four of their first five games, all of the results were close and were decided by mental mistakes like penalties or costly turnovers.

They cranked out a six-game winning streak at the end of October that leaked into November, culminating with a 4-2 win over the defending Cup champions, the Vegas Golden Knights.

The line of Mason McTavish, Frank Vatrano and Ryan Strome got off to a hot start and carried the offense for the better part of the first month.

Things weren’t all roses, however. An eight-game losing streak in November and a tough winter period where the Ducks struggled to find consistency in the win column saw them go 6-24-1 from Nov. 15 to Jan. 21.

Injuries to Zegras, Drysdale and 2023 second overall pick Leo Carlsson left the offense barren at times. Drysdale was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers in January in exchange for prospect Cutter Gauthier, who had informed the Flyers that he did not intend to play for them.

Penalty trouble did not subside even as the season aged further. The Ducks finished the 2023-24 season with the most power play opportunities against (330) in the NHL. Their penalty kill was second-worst in the league (72.42%), with only the New York Islanders (71.49%) faring worse than them on the kill.

While accountability was a word that was thrown around often, it seemed that Zegras bore the brunt of most of that early on after being benched for the third period and overtime during a game in October against the Columbus Blue Jackets due to poor performance.

There were points during the season where players received line demotions or—mostly the fourth line—did not play much in the third, but none of the incidents were as monumental as Zegras’ benching.

Cronin admitted in his end of the season interview that he probably should have benched players more often than he did.

On a brighter note, Cronin also expressed excitement at how much easier training camp will be next season now that most of the players are familiar with him.

“(The players) all said that next year is so much easier because they know me,” Cronin said. “They know my style, they know my standards. I know them, I know their reactions.”

Defensively, the Ducks improved substantially. Any improvement would have been substantial from last season’s historically-bad team though.

Anaheim’s goals against total dropped from 338 to 295. However, they scored less goals than this season, going from 209 to 204.

A lot of those offensive issues stemmed from the aforementioned injuries to Zegras and Carlsson, but the Ducks also failed to generate offense on a consistent basis regardless. There were some bright spots at the end of the season with both in the lineup, which gives hope for a more offensively-gifted team in 2024-25.

Cronin brought in Brent Thompson as an assistant coach to run the penalty kill and work with the defensemen. While players like Pavel Mintyukov, Jackson LaCombe, Olen Zellweger and Tristan Luneau did take steps in the right direction, the penalty kill will need to drastically improve going into next season.

There will be a new face running the power play next season after Newell Brown was dismissed following the expiration of his contract. The Ducks had a bottom-10 power play (18.3%) and had a tough time generating offense on the man advantage more often than not. There wasn’t a true first power play unit established either, as whichever unit got the first crack appeared to be a merit-based decision.

Cronin was very transparent about Brown having full autonomy of the power play, but perhaps that was a mistake considering how poorly it performed at times. Whoever fills the vacant role will have plenty of offensive weapons to work with if everyone remains healthy.

Being a head coach in the NHL is a tough job, especially in your first season. There is a lot of pressure to succeed right away. Cronin is already the 18th-longest tenured head coach in the NHL while holding the position for only a year.

Generating more offense and cutting down on penalties will be two of Cronin’s top priorities heading into next season, one in which the Ducks should be striving for a standings place outside the bottom-10.