The Geese announced Saturday they’ve relieved head coach Greg Cronin of his duties. He had one season remaining on his contract, per Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic.
Basic supervisor Pat Verbeek launched an announcement on his determination:
“I wish to personally thank Greg for his tireless work and dedication to the staff. He’s accountable in some ways for the advance we’ve seen from our younger core. Nevertheless, after a number of weeks of cautious analysis, I concluded we wanted a change in route and a brand new voice. This was an especially troublesome determination for me to make, however I felt it was essential to proceed our progress towards changing into a Stanley Cup contender that I do know we may be.”
Cronin spent the final two seasons behind the bench in Anaheim, his first stint as an NHL bench boss. It was hardly his first time working a staff, nonetheless, because the 61-year-old had head teaching expertise on the NCAA degree with Northeastern College and the AHL degree with Colorado the place he spent 5 seasons earlier than the Geese employed him in June 2023. He additionally had earlier expertise on an NHL bench as an assistant with the Islanders and Maple Leafs.
His first season was significantly tough. Anaheim managed a file of simply 27-50-5 whereas being within the bottom-three in objectives scored whereas permitting the Thirtieth-most objectives within the NHL. Past a profession yr from Frank Vatrano, lots of their key gamers both underachieved or didn’t develop as deliberate, resulting in some hypothesis that Anaheim would possibly make a change after only one season.
That didn’t occur and issues did go higher for the Geese this yr. They added 21 factors in comparison with the earlier season, placing them sixth within the Pacific Division. Issues improved on the goals-allowed facet as they had been twenty second in that regard this yr, however as soon as once more, purpose manufacturing was onerous to return by as they as soon as once more ranked Thirtieth general though they did add 14 tallies in comparison with 2023-24. Key younger forwards like Mason McTavish and Leo Carlsson took steps ahead in comparison with their manufacturing a yr in the past, whereas Cutter Gauthier completed robust. In the meantime, Jackson LaCombe turned a top-pairing blueliner, so there have been definitely extra positives from a improvement perspective, however that wasn’t sufficient for Verbeek to retain Cronin.
Whereas Verbeek references persevering with progress towards being a Cup contender, there’s a great distance nonetheless to go for them to get there. With that in thoughts, it is going to be attention-grabbing to see if he opts for an additional much less skilled coach with an emphasis on participant improvement or if he’ll look to extra of a veteran possibility with an eye fixed on attempting to get again into the playoff image rapidly. Anaheim turns into the primary true head coach opening across the NHL, though different groups shall be conducting searches to see if there’s a higher match behind the bench than the interim head coaches that completed the yr in these roles.
