Cronin understands Ducks firing in wake of Quenneville hire
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Greg Cronin says he was shocked when he was fired by the Anaheim Ducks on Apr. 19 after just two seasons behind the bench.
While Anaheim missed the playoffs for a seventh straight year, the rebuilding Ducks made a 21-point improvement up the standings, finishing with a 35-37-10 record, which made the firing sting even more for Cronin.
The Ducks instead went in a completely different direction behind the bench, hiring three-time Stanley Cup winning head coach Joel Quenneville in a controversial move on May 8.
The knowledge that he was replaced by an experienced coach with a winning resume has made it easier for Cronin to process his firing.
“I’m grateful,” Cronin told TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun in The Athletic. “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 adds that he and Quenneville spoke after the latter was hired with the former Chicago Blackhawks coach telling Cronin he was grateful for the work he did with the Ducks' young core.
“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.”
Cronin previously was a head coach at the NCAA and AHL levels and served as an assistant for the New York Islanders on two different occasions and with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
But this was his first NHL head coaching job and he says he learned a lot in his two years with Anaheim, admitting at times he was too hard on the players and had to figure out how to find the balance between pushing and letting them figure it out for themselves.
“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.”