Greg Cronin on the shock of Ducks firing and being replaced by Joel Quenneville
Greg Cronin was stunned when he got fired as Anaheim Ducks head coach last month despite a 21-point improvement in the standings this season.
But when the name of Joel Quenneville quickly surfaced as his possible successor, it took some of the sting out of it for him.
''That makes sense now,' I thought,' Cronin recalled to The Athletic over the weekend. 'He's an unbelievable Hall of Fame coach.'
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Quenneville is also a risky hire as far as alienating some in the Ducks fan base, though the team did feel it took the steps necessary before going down this path, as colleague Eric Stephens wrote last week.
The Quenneville hire gave Cronin a bit more peace of mind as far as understanding his firing after only two years behind the Ducks bench. He got replaced by a three-time Stanley Cup champion. Cronin is in a better place now.
'I'm grateful,' Cronin said. 'I loved working here. For me to be able to coach the young kids here, I'm so grateful and proud of what they did. They've got a bright future.'
Cronin actually heard from Quenneville over the weekend.
'He just wanted to tell me that he's grateful for the opportunity and thankful for what we did as a staff here to develop these guys and get them ready for the next chapter in their career,' Cronin said. 'He just said, 'Hey, I want to thank you.' He was very gracious about it. He said he was grateful about the opportunity because these players were all about to take off. And they are.'
Coincidentally, Cronin and Quenneville interacted during the season when the Ducks were in Florida for games against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers in mid-January.
'He was there watching, and I ended up talking to him for a long time,' Cronin recalled. 'I asked him to watch our team and tell me what he thought from a different set of eyes. So we spoke at length. We traded some good coach speak, and he gave me some good advice about what he saw.''
Little did Cronin know at the time he was talking to his eventual replacement.
Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek reiterated to The Athletic on Sunday just how difficult it was to fire Cronin, although clearly we know now that there was a bigger play at work with Quenneville.
'Greg laid a real good foundation for our team,' Verbeek said. 'We needed a major culture shift — and accountability shift. And I think he did a very good job there. Our players now have a really good understanding of accountability and culture. Greg did a really good job in that area.'
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Verbeek hired Cronin to instill that culture change in the midst of a rebuild.
'I felt real comfortable that Pat felt confident that the rebuild would have some pain to it,' Cronin said, now looking back at his hire two years ago. 'I communicated to him that's what would happen. Because when you're trying to change standards and there's a radical change, there are going to be some people that resist it. When you're pushing some people to a level that they're not comfortable with, there's a reaction. Pat and I talked about this.''
So yes, Year 1 under Cronin was tough.
'I was pushing the highest possible standards I could,' Cronin said. 'I didn't know the players that well. So in this generation, it's critical that you build relationships with the players so that you can understand what they respond to.
'My first year, there were some guys who weren't comfortable. They were getting pushed. I thought my staff did a really good job balancing out the messaging, reinforcing it, trying to keep them focused on it.'
But then came this season. There was obvious growth — and a jump in the standings, as the Ducks flirted with the outside of the playoff race in the second half before fading.
'We started out a bit slow, and we picked it up around December when we beat Winnipeg at home,' Cronin said. 'There was traction with what the standards were. You've got to have people compete as hard as they possibly can, and there's viability to their effort and then there's the connectivity to where the next play is going to be. We were starting to do that. Anyone that watched our team and looked at the standings saw definite progress.'
As Cronin pointed out, the special teams struggled. The Ducks were last in the league on the power play and 29th on the penalty kill. But the program overall showed positive signs.
Part of that was a softening of his approach before this season. He realized he pushed the players too hard at times in Year 1.
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'I was too hard and reactionary at times my first year,' Cronin said. 'I learned to dial that back in Year 2 as players drove the process.
'What I did in Year 1 was create nonnegotiable standards. We have to do these things to give ourselves the best chance to win. I do believe, at times, that I was hard on them. These standards are fundamental; they need to be executed to give ourselves the best chance to win. I pushed them hard. And I knew when I pushed them hard, there would be some guys that would be frustrated and angry.
'So what did I learn? That when you do that, some people don't like it and you run the risk of, No. 1, them disliking you, because I'm the guy holding them accountable; and No. 2, which is more dangerous, of them being disconnected. … It's OK if they don't like you because you're making them work at a rate or competitiveness that they're not comfortable with, but you can't push them to the point where they get disconnected.'
An important lesson there, to be sure. It's one that Cronin will bring with him into his next NHL gig. Coaches have to evolve, and Cronin said that's what he's doing.
'I've learned a ton the last few years,' he said. 'I think the work and the ensuing progress we made this year is a reflection of not just me but I had a great staff who worked hard. I'm really proud of the environment we created. Like I said, last year, there was some shrapnel that went around, that I feel I could have done things better there. But I don't know that unless I do what I did.
'Part of being a good coach is that you have to evolve and you have to adapt. I think we adapted this year.'
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For further context, that's the exact amount Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart — this year's first- and second-place Selke finalists — have allowed for Florida during the playoffs this year and last. 'If defense wins championships, McDavid and Draisaitl got the memo.' Case in point: With the Oilers nursing a lead going into the third period of Game 3 versus Dallas in the Western Conference final, Knoblauch chose to load up McDavid and Draisaitl, obviously not looking for offense as much as puck possession and to spend less time in their own zone after being caved in by Dallas in the second period. It worked swimmingly as the Oilers shut down the Stars en route to another win. Panthers head coach Paul Maurice has coached against it many times, so he's ready when it happens. 'Well, at some point, because they're together, you have a better indicator of when they're coming off the bench,' he said Thursday. 'It's slightly more of a challenge on the road. So you need to have more than one line (to match up) against them. So the third goal (from Mattias Ekholm, set up by McDavid in Game 1), it was the end of the shift and into the next shift, so you need to have more than one line coming off the bench. Other than that, you just have to go out and play.'' Easier said than done, of course. Consider this last little nugget from Dom regarding 97 and 29 together in Game 1: 'Barkov and Reinhart played 8:01 against McDavid and Draisaitl. Shot attempts were 14-4 Edmonton during that, expected goals were 0.42-0.14 Edmonton per 60 minutes (3-1 Edmonton, basically).'' Advertisement So, yeah. 'They play incredibly well together,' Oilers winger Evander Kane said Thursday. 'They read off each other well. They have different skill sets that elevate their skill sets together. At certain times in the game, the coaching staff likes to go to that. 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