IRVINE, Calif. — “My first few years, this place was a nightmare.”
Any set of eyebrows that are within earshot of what Chris Kreider has just said are immediately raised, because this is his response to a question about what allowed the Anaheim Ducks to become more of a desired destination now than they had been in the recent past.
“I mean, the whole Cali trip was awful,” Kreider said.
This is when Kreider becomes a storyteller and a comedian, sharing what it was like to play the Los Angeles Kings, San Jose Sharks and the Ducks three times over the span of a four-day California misadventure.
The Kings were filled with “monsters” — because all but three players on their roster were taller than six feet, while weighing an average of 210 pounds. The Sharks were their own special kind of hell because they had Brent Burns, Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton.
“Burns pinned me against the boards and I thought, ‘I’ll move my feet, the refs will see I can’t go anywhere and I’ll draw a penalty,'” Kreider said. “That’s when I looked down and my feet weren’t touching the ice. I’m 6-3, and I was playing at 230 pounds. Brent Burns just lifted me off the ice.”
Then there’s what happened in Anaheim.
“I don’t think I ever touched the puck when I was in this building,” Kreider said. “It was [Corey] Perry and [Ryan] Getzlaf and whoever they were playing with at the time. … I got the ‘honor’ of matching up against them a few times, and I was called into the coaches’ room after that trip. I got told that my game wasn’t where it needed to be.”
Reliving such fun times is what makes Kreider point toward the stalls that belong to teammates like Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier and Jackson LaCombe.
“You look at those guys,” Kreider said. “There’s going to be a day in the near future where [opponents] are saying the same thing about them.”
That, in Kreider’s mind, is why the Ducks are a destination again. But are they a playoff team?
“From my perspective, the expectation is to make the playoffs,” Ducks GM Pat Verbeek said. “So, your answer to that is yes.”
AFTER MISSING THE PLAYOFFS for seven straight seasons, there were questions about the Ducks’ trajectory. However, they’ve developed one of the NHL’s best farm systems through strong drafting — and are now answering those questions. They missed the playoffs last season, but finished with 80 points — their highest total in six years.
This past offseason was one of the most pivotal in franchise history. Verbeek and his staff traded John Gibson and Trevor Zegras — two players who at separate times were the face of the Ducks. They added veterans like Mikael Granlund and Kreider, while signing members of their young core to long-term contracts.
Verbeek also fired coach Greg Cronin after two seasons, and hired three-time Stanley Cup winner Joel Quenneville, who had guided the Chicago Blackhawks to those three titles but hadn’t coached in nearly four seasons. Quenneville resigned from coaching the Florida Panthers in October 2021 and was banished from the league in the wake of an investigation that concluded the Blackhawks mishandled sexual assault allegations raised by former player Kyle Beach against video coach Brad Aldrich during the team’s 2010 Stanley Cup run. The NHL lifted Quenneville’s ban in 2024.
Trading Gibson and Zegras. The decision to add more veterans. The belief that their young core is ready to do more. The entirety of what it means to hire Quenneville, a decision that has led to criticism in some circles.
Verbeek is not alone in thinking that this could be a pivot point in the team’s arc of contention.
“The last couple years, we’ve gone into it like, ‘We might have a good team. It’s going to be this young guy’s first year or that young guy’s first year.’ It was almost a question of, ‘If this guy steps up, we could have a good team,” Ducks winger Troy Terry said. “I think this year we still have some young players but they’re experienced now and we’ve seen what they can do now. There are less questions of ‘If this and this happens, we should be a good team’ and know we should be a good team.”
MARTIN MADDEN IS the Ducks’ assistant GM and director of amateur scouting. He’s overseen the team’s amateur scouting setup since 2008, and has drafted 56 players who’ve reached the NHL. That includes their entire seven-player class from 2011 that included Josh Manson, William Karlsson, Rickard Rakell and Gibson.
All those homegrown players that make up the Ducks’ young core — including Lukas Dostal, Mason McTavish, Olen Zellweger, LaCombe and Terry — were all drafted by Madden. Following Verbeek’s hiring in 2022, they added Pavel Mintyukov and Carlsson to that list of draftees, while trading for Gauthier, selected fifth overall by the Flyers in 2022.
“We came up with a philosophy on the players that we want to draft and we proceeded to try and execute that as closely as possible given the fact there are variables like if a guy is there and if not, you might not have a choice,” Verbeek said. “That’s how we’ve gone about it. The other part is making sure you get to pick high. You know you’re going to find some gems later in the draft. But you have a better chance of finding them if you’re picking high.”
Madden and Verbeek outlined that they wanted prospects who were competitive, smart and had a strong work ethic. They found those players, while acknowledging that every prospect would develop differently.
For every player like LaCombe, who played four years of college hockey, there were others like Carlsson who played against professionals in Sweden or McTavish who played in the OHL and the AHL in the same year they reached the NHL.
There was also a game plan on finding the right players with experience to fill out the roster. Verbeek went after veterans who had either won Stanley Cups, such as Alex Killorn, or those who’ve made numerous deep playoff runs such as Granlund, Radko Gudas, Jacob Trouba and Kreider.
Verbeek pitched those veterans on playing a significant role in building something substantial, establishing a foundational culture with a homegrown core that has a chance to be special.
“I was an older player too, and you can see it and feel it when you play with those [young] players,” Verbeek said. “So I feel that was something that was attractive for those players.”
One example of that is the dynamic between Carlsson and Granlund. The Ducks drafted Carlsson with the No. 2 pick in 2023, with the expectation he could become a two-way, top-line center. They signed Granlund this offseason so they could have a proven two-way, top-nine anchor down the middle.
The Ducks placed Carlsson’s stall next to Granlund’s at the practice facility — a place where teams spend the most time of any venue. It allowed the duo to foster a relationship, and has allowed Carlsson to get instant feedback or seek immediate advice.
“It’s pretty simple. [The Ducks’ veterans] just want us to play our game and they’re giving us awesome tips,” Carlsson said. “Sitting next to Granny [in the dressing room], he gives me tips too and I just listen and take it all in. Then you take it into your game and it’s knowing you’ll be fine.”
Like anything, there is a balance. Kreider and Trouba, who were part of a rebuild with the New York Rangers earlier in their careers, each explained what it means to be a veteran. Trouba said it’s about passing down what you’ve learned, while also being a sounding board because there is so much to learn about how to navigate the NHL.
Kreider added how while it’s important for those veterans to have a voice, they also want those young players to speak their minds.
Yet the player with the firmest grasp on what this means for the Ducks is Terry, the 28-year-old who is the team’s longest serving member. Terry said watching the front office continue to draft and develop homegrown talents proves the organization is more than committed to building a long-term winner. Adding those veterans amplifies that belief.
“It sends the message that we do have the guys here now that can make that push and at minimum, fight for a playoff spot,” Terry said. “I think just the moves that were made help our team a lot but it helps send the message internally that it’s time to really take that next step.”
That also includes another move that Verbeek and the Ducks’ front office made that could be a defining decision in more ways than one.
THERE ARE ON-ICE QUESTIONS that Quenneville must answer given that he hasn’t coached for four seasons. There are off-ice questions, too, about what he says he’s learned from his role in the Blackhawks sexual assault scandal.
The second-winningest coach in NHL history said when he took the Ducks job in May that he is a changed man. How has he actually changed? What are he and the Ducks doing to make sure they don’t land themselves in a situation like the Columbus Blue Jackets who acknowledged in 2023 they made a mistake in hiring Mike Babcock?
Quenneville and Verbeek were asked about it multiple times in the early portion of Quenneville’s introductory news conference. Months later, the Ducks continue to face questions.
A team source told ESPN that the organization believes in being transparent when it comes to anything related to Quenneville, including their process for choosing him along with what they did in the years before hiring Quenneville to make the organization a safe environment for all employees.
“A lot of the people I worked with were very helpful in how to deal with, how to be aware and how to address these situations,” Quenneville said. “We talked about this on the first day of training camp, about what my takeaways were from the last four years. A lot of people taught me important things … and the one thing I want to apply is that it’s not going to happen on our watch.
“The awareness factor — be it staff, players, one another. Let’s make sure that we’re all aware that any instances of bad behavior are addressed and identified and that accountability is there and that trust and support is there. I think that the most important thing for me and for us is that your safety is the priority.”
Verbeek said that the education and programming that Quenneville went through over the last three years in his work with advocacy groups is something that the Ducks owners Henry and Susan Samueli, who have owned the team since 2003, have also done for several years. Verbeek said that the Ducks are providing “constant education,” while adding they’ve done education refreshment every two years.
Verbeek said that the training the Ducks provide has created practices and protocols that are in place which allow them to recognize warning signs as a preventative measure.
Quenneville said the time he spent talking to sexual assault survivors about their experience reinforced why those situations can “never happen again.”
“I can’t be in a position to even think about letting it happen again,” Quenneville said. “I learned I should have done more things. I should have asked more questions. I should have been tougher in some meetings to find out more. I’ll take ownership of that and I know that it won’t happen again.”
The NHL determined that Quenneville along with then-Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman and then-executive Al MacIsaac were ineligible to work for other teams, and the Blackhawks were fined $2 million for having inadequate policies in place. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman lifted the ban in July 2024. The league noted the “sincere remorse” by Bowman, MacIsaac and Quenneville for their “unacceptable” response to the allegations.
Bowman was the first of the three to return to the NHL in summer 2024 when he was hired as the GM of the Edmonton Oilers.
ON THE ICE, there were several items that allowed Quenneville to succeed with the Blackhawks. Among them were how he found ways to consistently elevate the team’s young core, led by Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Jonathan Toews.
Seeing what the Panthers had with Aleksander Barkov, Aaron Ekblad and Jonathan Huberdeau reminded him of the Blackhawks, which is what made South Florida appealing. The Panthers have built around Barkov and Ekblad, before trading Huberdeau to get Matthew Tkachuk en route to winning consecutive Stanley Cups in 2024 and 2025.
Although Quenneville was eligible to return in 2024-25, he didn’t land a job but still closely followed the NHL. Quenneville said he was living in Florida when Verbeek, who was his former teammate back with the Hartford Whalers, reached out to pitch him on the possibility of coaching the Ducks.
“Before that, I was looking at, ‘Where could I go if there was an opportunity?'” Quenneville said. “From what I saw and from what everyone told me, that this is the place to come. This is a team that’s ready. They got a lot of the right pieces.”
Quenneville enters this season 31 wins away from 1,000 for his career. He’s second on the NHL’s all-time wins list behind Scotty Bowman, with 1,244. The games and Stanley Cups he has won makes him one of the greatest coaches in league history, and easily the most high-profile coach the Ducks have ever employed.
Part of the reason why Quenneville has succeeded is his ability to teach and connect with young players. During his first season with the St. Louis Blues, defenseman Chris Pronger set a career high in points, and did so while operating as a 22-year-old captain. In his first season in Chicago, several players — like Kane, Keith, Toews and Seabrook — also set new career highs. It was a similar pattern in Florida with Barkov and Ekblad.
Could he do the same thing with the Ducks’ young core in 2025-26 and beyond?
“It’s exciting, but obviously, it’s all on me though when it comes to playing better,” Carlsson said when asked about the prospect of improving under Quenneville. “The thing is he’s proven to younger guys that he’s about giving us a fair chance, and I’m excited for that. He’s just a coach that makes your game better, which I love.”
