Anaheim Ducks: Staying the Current Course Could be the Best Option
There has been a lot of talk in recent times regarding the firing and replacing of much of the Anaheim Ducks management team. Head Coach Dallas Eakins has been vilified to no end. General Manager Bob Murray has also not been exempt. I personally wrote a piece just recently discussing possible coaching candidates should Coach Eakins be let go. In many ways, this is standard fan behavior and in many ways, standard human behavior. We all want to blame someone. We all want to think that someone new will do better.
Even the Ducks’ prospects are no different. We live in a disposable society in which we can easily find a short to pleasure high. Like an addict who “can quit any time they like, they just don’t want to,” sports fans tend to jump on the highs of the newest hotness in town.
We’ll overlook that we’d be better off if we just left them well alone, in favor of the euphoric high we get watching them do more or less what the veterans do but with fewer wrinkles on their faces and a more majestic head of hair.
However, all of that angst we feel rushing to kick out the old in order to rush into the newest high may not be in our best interests. Pulling back to the addict analogy, how many users do you imagine recognize their inhibitions leaving them? How many people do they cut out of their lives with their me first, me now, attitudes? You’re probably wondering what that has to do with hockey?
I present to you, your honor, exhibit A: The Buffalo Sabres.
Taking Notes from the Buffalo Sabres
Consider that their best young talent, Jack Eichel, is into his 6th season of NHL hockey. In those six years, he’s had, three coaches and three general managers. There are pretty good odds on him seeing at least one more coach in the relatively near future. Hot young prospect, Rasmus Dahlin, is on his second coach and second general manager in (checks notes) his second NHL season.
There’s no denying it. The Buffalo Sabres are the crazy addict who sometimes sleeps in your garage on cold winter nights. What’s astounding is that they are the poster children for how not to build a team through the draft. Young players need clear and defined direction in order to thrive. How can they possibly develop to their absolute best selves when the message is constantly changing?
Furthermore, are the Sabres even rebuilding anymore? They’re clearly terrible, yet went out and bought some big-name players this season in Taylor Hall, and to a lesser extent, Eric Staal. They already have current and future franchise crippling contract of Jeff Skinner on their books, alongside Kyle Okposo. This was a team that bought in hard on a quick hit and is paying the price and will pay the price, for years to come. Are they rebuilding or are they contending? Do they know?
How Does this Relate to the Anaheim Ducks?
Well, there are clearly some concerns with Dallas Eakins’ game plan and systems play. Bob Murray has long had his detractors. Yet, is mid-way through a rebuild the right time to remove them? I would argue that it isn’t. Particularly noteworthy is that the team itself doesn’t really have any long-term concerns.
The contracts, for the most part, are manageable, and the Anaheim Ducks will be coming into a lot of cap space over the next season or two. They have flexibility. It’s also worth noting that Murray has taken the Ducks from a bottom third in the league prospect pool (as the prospect graduated to the NHL) back into the top third over the course of a couple of drafts.
It’s not the perfect rebuild by any stretch, but prior to Trevor Zegras coming into the NHL, all of the premier prospects were playing together and developing together in a winning environment. It’s hard to beat that. They had a clear plan in place you’d imagine from that setup— Bring them all through together so that they may create chemistry and thrive in a winning environment. Even the prospects themselves all fit a certain style of play, given they’re (nearly) all solid skaters who excel in neutral zone play.
Yet, fans want them to rush towards being the Sabres. They want all their prospects up in the big club because they can’t possibly get better in a pro league that isn’t the NHL. They want a changing message from the top down. They want the illusion of results. They want it all immediately.
We heard it with Zegras, yet the results aren’t any different. We still hear with Zegras, that he’s not being played enough and every other excuse under the sun. This may upset many, yet even adjusted on a per-time-on-ice basis the Anaheim Ducks primarily are not presenting good metrics while he’s on the ice.
Specifically, on a per 60 minutes basis, the on-ice results for offensive metrics during 5v5 hockey and for Zegras specifically, rank (amongst all Ducks skaters): 2nd last for Corsi-for (43.58%), 3rd last for Fenwick-for (30.64%), 6th worst for expected goals-for (1.87), 4th worst for scoring chances for (19.07%), and 6th overall, including a 1 game sample from Andrew Agozzino, for offensive zone starts (65.52%).
This isn’t to suggest that Zegras is cooked as a prospect, just that his presence isn’t particularly influencing the team’s results, despite the very occasional highlight-reel play. There is certainly an undercurrent of armchair development coaches who are adamant with 100% certainty that Zegras can’t possibly improve his skills in any league except the NHL at this stage.
Yet is that really true? Well, it’s about as true as suggesting that chasing that sweet methamphetamine high will be good for your health. You may say it to convince yourself, but it certainly isn’t supported by any scientific literature.
Now the calls are coming for Drysdale to be brought up, as the junior hockey seasons get closer and closer to all starting back up. We’ve certainly seen how Buffalo’s Rasmus Dahlin has impacted his team’s fortunes. Even Mikhail Sergachyov played his 18-year-old season in the OHL, and he has had far stronger results leading into his NHL debut than Drysdale.
Again, this is not criticism towards Drysdale himself. In fact, being compared to two such fantastic young defencemen is high praise. The question, however, is towards the fans calling for him to be in the NHL because he has nothing left to learn. Why is this young player so much more likely to succeed than two of the premier young players in the league?
That isn’t to say that Zegras and Drysdale aren’t a big part of the future. They are. It isn’t to say that Murray and Eakins should be here forever. They shouldn’t be. As one who has both wanted to rebuild through the draft absolutely want the Ducks to develop the prospects as best as possible. As one who has criticized Murray and Eakins in the past, I am certainly on board with moving on from them.
Preaching Patience
In clear contrast to the Sabres, consider the Toronto Maple Leafs. They went in with the “Shannaplan”, and for the most part, stayed the course until they had made a couple of playoff series and had shown tangible growth. They had developed a coach they liked in the AHL and went out and got a General Manager who fit their changing vision. However, the original plan was adhered to for as long as it was necessary to do so.
It’s hard to argue the Leafs have done everything perfectly. Yet, it’s far harder to argue that their process has been equal or worse than what the Sabres have implemented. It’s a clear showing that a singular message and purpose are fundamental to success. More than anything they played a patient game and went in with a clear purpose. When the parameters of that purpose changed they reevaluated. The Anaheim Ducks are simply not at that place where they should be changing tacks and changing their plans.
The Anaheim Ducks Need a Simple Message
People are fundamentally incapable of taking on board too much information. The best coaches may stick to singular messages. There is a story going around of a Robin Reid middleweight title fight (1996) in which his coach had some few words to say to his fighter between rounds.
You can imagine all of the things that could be said: He could ask to push the pace to take advantage of better conditioning; He could receive encouragement for executing the plan thus far; Warnings about complacency; Perhaps he could consider just telling the fighter to continue doing what he was doing. What do you imagine the message was? “Sit down when you punch.”
That was it. That was the message. More to the point, it was a message that provided a simple visualization and referred back to hours spent in the gym. For the record, the message referred to planting the feet and producing more power in his punches.
The coach had seen his fighter, landing punches and hurting the other fighter, but that he was always looking to move away once they landed. His message now was to make those punches hit harder and for them to count. Reid understood. He won the fight.
The All Blacks Rugby Union team has a simple message under the stewardship of Sir Graham Henry. “Enhance the All Blacks Jersey and pass it on in a better state than it was when you go it.” The Anaheim Ducks need a simple message and they need that continuation.
Perhaps a more apt story would be one from Sir Alex Ferguson’s old team. For those who follow English Football, many would recognize Ferguson as a master coach. His aura as a coach is just so great. However, his heir following his retirement never quite had the touch that Ferguson did. While Ferguson preached simplicity, David Moyes would often send mixed messages. Consider the following comments from Rio Ferdinand:
“I think perhaps the biggest thing was that Sir Alex Ferguson never confused us with too much detail – just a few key words and a mindset that there’s no doubt we were going to beat the other teams. If you go out with a clear, strong idea, you’ll execute in a more decisive manner”
Conversely, he had this to say about David Moyes, who wanted them to change styles. Though the complaint was that none of the players knew what that style would look like.
There were a lot of mixed messages. Sometimes he’d say ” I want you to pass the ball,” other days it was, “I dont want you to pass the ball.” What the fuck do you want us to do man?
Now, while this is clearly a coaching issue, the change in message is clearly an issue for players. In bringing that back to a hockey scenario, it would seem prudent to maintain a similar message for the duration of a particular goal. For the Anaheim Ducks now, their goal should be to rebuild. Once they’ve cleared that hurdle and have developed a player group who can reach the top half of the league in goal scoring and prevention, then perhaps those goals can change.
Removing Eakins Could Set the Ducks on a Path not Built for Success
But for now, they’re only in the second season of Dallas Eakins’ tenure. Removing him now would merely place the current Ducks youth in a similar place to the Buffalo youth. Two coaches in two seasons. A path that is clearly not built for the players to succeed.
That may go doubly this season when there is so little time to actually run a practice. Players need to have days without physical work put into them, to avoid breaking down. With the league almost forcing four games a week into teams, there are very few multi-day breaks that allow the Ducks to make tangible changes to their systems.
In essence, games are practice, this season. Firing a coach who is unable to call practices and make changes, just for the sake of organizational change is foolish. Particularly given the incoming coach would be stuck with the same problems. They can’t practice. Thus the same systems, or generic simple ones, would be implemented. There’s simply no upside to making that change at this point in time.
Perhaps more pertinent is that many of the Anaheim Ducks youth are in the midst of taking some significant strides in terms of their play. Max Jones, who for so long was left to— I’ll say rot, but that’s a little harsh— rot in the bottom 6, has been given a new lease on life as a banger on the top line. He’s playing the best hockey of his career after being given a chance to create space for the team’s best player.
Isac Lundestrom was an enigma of sorts prior to recent weeks, yet his play has seen him almost become an energy-forward on the third line. Like Jones, Lundestrom is in the best form of his career. Troy Terry has been back and forth from the dog house since last season, yet only last week scored what may be the best goal of his entire career. He may not be in career-best form, but no longer will his career be defined by an all-amateur Olympic Games.
Max Comtois, however, may be in career-best form. He plays a simple game, and that game is bang bodies and shoots from everywhere. He’s been the team’s most promising young player, and while not in the echelon of rarified air that former Duck Corey Perry once breathed, Comtois, is clearly showing he can play a power forwards role next to Ryan Getzlaf.
It’s more than likely too late for these younger players to be the stars that many fans wanted them to be. However, there is still a very strong possibility that they can become the role players the Anaheim Ducks will put around promising likely-stars, Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale. With these young players finally showing promise, is now the time to be confusing them with new messages and new ideals?
Blow It Up And Build Through The Draft
Seemingly another critique is the trading of players for more draft capital. While I am certainly a big proponent of building a team via the draft process, I do not believe that trading away key players is in the Anaheim Ducks’ best interests. At least not at this time.
For instance, many have called for the trading of Josh Manson and Rickard Rakell over the past year. Both players are probably not performing as well as they might like over the two-year period, not discounting Rakells current 10-points in 5-games streak (at the time of writing).
Yet, the question should seriously be asked whether burning it all down to build through the draft is the way to go? It hasn’t worked for the Buffalo Sabres. It’s hard to argue that the Edmonton Oilers have done a good job either, considering their abundant wealth of #1 overall draft selections over the years.
On the team that held onto a star player, playing below his best (and at the time somewhat disgruntled), was the Colorado Avalanche. It’s somewhat hard to remember back to 2017-2018, but the Avalanche team then had what was one of the historically worst seasons in living memory. Hard to imagine, but they didn’t move on from that disgruntled and struggling player at that time (nor did they fire their coach or GM).
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Moving forward to the present day, and the Avalanche are one of the league’s most exciting teams with an abundance of wealth that makes even the league’s elite green with envy. That star player they didn’t trade back then? Matt Duchene, whom they turned into (eventually) Bowen Byram and Sam Girard. Key pieces of a young and electric blueline.
Thus is now the right time to move Josh Manson? To move Rickard Rakell? There is always going to be a positive case for moving either player and many others. However, that piece has to unique enough to warrant making the move. Any first-round pick is probably not going to cut it.
Consider that the Anaheim Ducks have recently drafted Brayden Tracey at the back of the first round. At present, he’s a strong maybe to become a role player and almost no chance at becoming a star. Would that kind of value be worthwhile over a 27-year-old who still got the chops to put up 10-points in 5-games? Is it really pushing the rebuild forward?
The answer is a resounding no. Sure, we can choose to take a hit from the metaphorical crack pipe and believe that the new hotness will be better than the current product. We want it now and we want it fast. But the reality is that it very likely will not be the case, and we’ll be selling anything not glued down for our next hit.
Next. 3 Candidates to Replace the Ducks Coaching Staff. dark
Can you say Jeff Skinners 7-year, $9 million AAV contract? Because that’s what we’d be looking at down the line. You know it and I know it. Or maybe you don’t. After all, you can quit any time you like… right?
All statistics sourced from naturalstattrick.com