Nope. He was set up to have a weak team. But not to fail to the extent that he has. It takes a "special" coach to have a team play as badly as the Ducks have done this year.
He has failed, badly, with two NHL teams. While they may have been bad teams, they were not as bad as the finishes that they had. I certainly didn't feel sorry when Randy moved on, and I don't feel sorry when he moves on. This is a case of out with the old, regardless of the new.
My conclusion is that he is not an NHL quality coach. There is nothing wrong with that in the general scheme of life. Not everyone is, and not every coach will be successful at the NHL level. That doesn't make him a bad person. It just makes him suitable for another occupation in life. It is time for him to take the money he has hopefully saved and move on in his life.
Let's begin by me stating, once again, I'm indifferent if we keep or lose Eakins b/c he's just a placeholder for new GM Verbeek.
Unfortunately, I've been tracking the Ducks in-depth for the past few years. Just because you couldn't imagine this team being this bad doesn't mean that the team could be doing better.
This reminds me of watching THN's first quarter review of the Ducks between two broadcasters. One of them started citing the acquisitions of "Strome, Vatrano, Klingberg, and Kulikov" to believe the Ducks would be a playoff team this year. The other guy said the team was in a rebuild and didn't believe in Klingberg, iirc.
I just keep hearing surface, narrative reasonings for many bashing Eakins. Eakins was tapped to be the head coach for two rebuilding teams... technically, three rebuilding teams since Verbeek reset the rebuild. But here's where narrative fails...
2020-21: Finished 2nd.
2021 Summer: No outside talent added.
2021-22, Verbeek was hired: The Ducks were 3rd in the Pacific at All-Star break, a playoff position. (48GP, 23-16-9, 55 pts)
2021-22, Finished: After TDL, finished 10th. not a playoffs position. (34GP, 8-21-5, 21 pts)
2022 Summer: Added D White, RW Vatrano, C Strome, D Klingberg, D Kulikov, D Beaulieu
2022-23: Finish in the bottom-3.
How do you explain 2021-22 season? That dispels your narrative that Eakins can't engineer a potential playoff push.
| Ducks | 2021-22 | | | | | | | | | | |
|---|
| Games | GM | GF | GA | GD | | Games | W | L | OTL | Pts | Point share |
| All Games | Total | 232 | 271 | -39 | | 82 | 31 | 37 | 14 | 72 | 0.439 |
| Gm 49 to 82 | Verbeek | 91 | 134 | -43 | | 34 | 8 | 21 | 5 | 17 | 0.250 |
| Gm 1 to 48 | Non-Verbeek | 141 | 137 | 4 | | 48 | 23 | 16 | 9 | 55 | 0.573 |
It's not Eakins' fault that new GM Verbeek couldn't find proper defensive replacements for Lindholm and Manson as well as lose the physicality of Des. Verbeek could have kept Milano, but didn't. Verbeek picked up waivers Leason and Megna, but didn't try to pick up Tolvanen off of waivers?
I'm not advocating on keeping or getting rid of Eakins. I'm just putting down the narrative fires and giving Eakins credit. Randy got fired b/c he lost the team. Eakins has yet to lose the team. A poster keeps bringing up the worst PP% (COVID season), but the PP is not Eakins' responsibility and GM Murray took responsibility for that since those assistant coaches were from Randy's regime. Can Eakins lead a team to the playoffs? Sure, if he has top talent and talent depth, which 2021-22 season start proved. Verbeek sat on his hands knowing Manson was on IR for a long while, not helping the NHL club when Verbeek became the GM.
At last year's TDL, I wasn't expecting Eakins to return. When Eakins returned to coach, then he's just a placeholder to me. Now, I'm in the minority that predicted it'll take a few years before we can begin to compete for the playoffs b/c we're building through the draft defensively. We know that McIlvane, a head coach from Germany, is set to become a coach for San Diego next season, maybe head coach as well. Welp, this feels like Bouchard-Eakins situation again where Bouchard gets a season or two in the AHL before replacing Eakins. That didn't pan out for Bouchard.
If McIlvane is Verbeek's preferred coach of the future, then Eakins would be a good enough placeholder. I like the reporting on McIlvane's coaching, which is similar to Eakins', but maybe McIlvane could take it to another level. We just don't know if he'll pan out just like we didn't know about Bouchard. Bouchard's situation should have us being skeptical.
