The Anaheim Ducks parted ways with Greg Cronin as head coach on Saturday morning. Cronin had one year remaining on his contract and finished with a 62-87-15 record in two seasons behind the team’s bench.

Ducks Move On From Greg Cronin

The Ducks were the first team to let their coach go after the 2024-25 season, followed shortly by the New York Rangers and Peter Laviolette.

The Ducks' decision to go in a different direction behind the bench may have come as more of a shock, as the Ducks, a team still in their rebuild, made a 21-point improvement in the NHL standings in 2024-25, the second-most by any team (Columbus Blue Jackets, 23).

NHL head coaches are rarely let go after just two seasons on the job. It’s typically in the personal best interest of GMs to give their head coaching hire some rope before pulling the plug, both for job security purposes and because it takes time for messages and systems to set in. 

Cronin was Pat Verbeek's first coaching hire after he took the position as general manager of the Anaheim Ducks in February 2022.

So why was now the right time?

“As I went through this process, as I always do, I start to look at things when we probably went out of the playoff picture, I started to really start to look at things closer, and obviously, there were some concerns,” Verbeek told media following Staurday’s announcement. “Then, as I got closer to the end of the season, (with) all the assessments, is kind of when I really decided to make the change, and decided that it was the right time to take this team in a different direction and with a different voice.

“I would say in the end it wasn't really about the wins and losses. I think that when I talked about the concerns, some of those were things that, in my opinion, could not be overcome with whatever measuring stick you wanted to apply to it. So with that and my experience, as a player and being a manager, I thought at this time it was the right time to make the change and for our team to move forward.”

If Verbeek spotted significant concerns with the direction the head coach was taking his roster and didn’t see that coach as the long-term solution behind the bench that could elevate their talent to where he feels they could go, putting a stop to the bleeding sooner rather than later is in the best interest of all parties involved.

By all accounts, Cronin brought with him a standard of accountability on and off the ice and built a culture of work ethic and responsibility. However, the systems he implemented weren’t conducive to the roster constructed by Verbeek, and the lineup construction was less than optimal game-to-game.

By choosing to go in a different direction in mid-April, Verbeek has given himself the largest pool to select from when it comes to potential head coaching candidates. Several quality candidates outside the NHL could fit Verbeek’s vision, and there are more from inside the NHL sphere that will be searching for jobs this offseason.

Verbeek and the eventual new hire will have the opportunity to draw a blueprint for the offseason to build a roster and system in lockstep with each other’s vision. A front office and coaching staff that can build and optimize a roster hand-in-hand has proven necessary to reach the fullest potential of an organization.

The new hire will have a full offseason and training camp to acclimate themselves to their new environment and roster, affording the most runway possible so the Ducks can hit the ground running to start the 2025-26 season. Teams that wait until several weeks or months into a new NHL season to pull the trigger on a head coach are often too far out of the playoff picture to climb back in, and that coach is behind the eight ball in terms of implementing their culture, systems, and voice within a locker room.

Verbeek stated several times in his press conference that he expects the Ducks to be in the playoffs by this time next season. He believes in the roster he’s building and the culture that’s been established.

“I think I see this team at a point to where my expectation of this team is to make the playoffs next year,” Verbeek said. “From my perspective, the team’s right on course, and we're improving. Sometimes you have to look at scenarios to where a voice is needed to push this group to another level, and obviously, I think that you look at the teams that are in the playoffs, we need 10 more wins, and that's what we need to figure out to get done for next season. I'm going to look for those answers with the new coach.”

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