How would you grade Dallas Eakins’s first season as head coach?

[MMC]

With it being incredibly unlikely this team plays anymore game this season, I thought it would be a good time to see how this board feels about the job Eakins did in his first season as our head coach.

Click to read more...

 

[Paul4587]

D. He wasn’t awful but he was bought in largely because of his experience developing the youngsters in SD which he was heavily praised for. Every single young player we had regressed quite a bit under his watch.

I was going to give a C but when you consider that he essentially put together the same results (better underlying numbers but not enough to propel us up in the standings) as 18-19 which was the worst coached season in Ducks history I couldn’t give him a passing grade. I expected more this season.

 

[Static]

B.

When the season started and the team was healthy we played really, really good hockey. The injuries started piling up and this roster just did not have the depth to keep up with that.

Some of his lineup choices annoyed me, but they were mostly on the fringes and probably didn't have a ton of impact. Given a better roster I think he can be very successful with us.

 

[Leonardo87]

Would give him an incomplete. But was likely going to average a C/C+. Didn’t have much to work with due to the injuries and too many AHL guys filling the roster for good portions of the season.

The kids not really taking off has been the biggest disappointment and even tough some vets bounced back others took a step back or stayed the same.

I think next season he has to give players shorter leashes. I understand they wanted players to play though struggles but it didn’t work for the most part. That right there is a coaching decision. Should also start holding vets accountable who are playing lazy.

 

[dracom]

C- for me. I was hoping his experience with the kids would result in them getting better, but I don't think any of them really did anything to stand out or show they are going to have strong NHL careers. I feel like Fowler and the 4th line were the only players to have a strong season under Eakins as well; we had plenty of players that were absolutely awful this year for a majority of the year. I was not happy with his use of the kids and basically giving them a free spot on the roster instead of having them earn it. Next season will be the the right season to judge him since hopefully we'll actually have a full season.

 

[duxfan1101]

I'm going with C.

One of the main reasons our season went so poorly was that our young kids didn't take major steps forward. Now, that could mean our expectations were too high, or maybe there was some mishandling with them, but I'm not sure how much blame you can put on the head coach for that. It's not like he wasn't giving them plenty of opportunities to prove themselves.

 

[Smirnov2Chistov]

Was going to give him a C but he gets a B. The team actually played better after the deadline. Even though I was a staunch Ritchie supporter, Heinen actually plays really well and so does Milano.

 

[Deuce22]

C. Started out well as the team played a more aggressive style. But things devolved as the season wore one and his lineup selections were questionable at times. Special teams failures have to factor in to the grade, as well.

 

[Gliff]

D. He wasn’t awful but he was bought in largely because of his experience developing the youngsters in SD which he was heavily praised for. Every single young player we had regressed quite a bit under his watch.

I was going to give a C but when you consider that he essentially put together the same results (better underlying numbers but not enough to propel us up in the standings) as 18-19 which was the worst coached season in Ducks history I couldn’t give him a passing grade. I expected more this season.

This is a good point. I wanted him to get the job for that reason. I thought our young players would have an easier adjustment.

Taking that into account I would change my vote from a C to a D.

 

[MMC]

Surprised to see the B votes, can it really be argued he did an above average job?

 

[AngelDuck]

C-

 

[branmuffin17]

People seem to be looking at his effect (or non-effect) on the younger players, giving him a bye for the high amount of injuries, and other things like that. Some of that might be attributed to him and how he used them and paired them on lines, and whatnot, but a lot of that IS on the players he had available to choose from (e.g. injuries, trades), which is more GMBM, and on the players themselves, both young and vet.

I think one thing that should be considered is the playstyle he enforced, and how that differed with the eye-test compared to their style in previous seasons under Carlyle. The biggest proposed changes there were more up-tempo play, less dump and chase, more shot attempts and high-event, etc. To that end, I noticed the team regressed on that sometimes, but this season they were quite often doing what they set out to do, and were even dictating play (if not scoring goals) against the better teams in the league.

I think I would score based on different subjects:

• C or D for effect on his former AHL players
• C for the vets (Fowler strong, Henrique higher goals, Silf doing his thing, but others not doing as well, Gibson struggling, etc.)
• C (maybe) for lineup choices (Ricky + Silf, then moving away from Ricky + Silf, then finally putting them back together)
• B for a change to being more exciting to watch, which may also have an effect on the other aspects of success once he has some (hopefully) better players to work with for a full year.

 

[ADHB]

C. The definition of average... he didn’t overachieve at all but didn’t underachieve either based on the roster and injury situation. The assistants may not get as good a grade depending on how responsible or not they are for the special teams. Eakins shares some of the blame there in either case I suppose. Yes, we don’t have that much talent but PK is usually more structure and strategy based than talent, and while we were never going to have a good PP with this roster, the fact that it looks as stale as it has for years wasn’t very impressive.

 

[TheStuntman]

I would give him a C+. Injures are not the coaches fault and yes he has questionable lineup choices. The Ducks main goal for the season was to develop young players and to play a more modern system. While the development hasn't been there, I thought the team was really hitting their stride after the trades and becoming more of a modern style team. Maybe it's small sample size, but I did really see some improvement in a lot of the skill aspects. Also, the Ducks were playing better on 5 on 5 than last season if you believe in analytics. I know it doesn't show up on the stat sheet, but the players are getting to the high scoring chances, they just need to learn how to finish. While, I was hoping to see more improvement from the young players, I think it'll come with time. It's a bit disappointing to see where the Ducks are after the solid start they had. The Ducks are where they should be at this point in the rebuild. If the season resumes, I would like to see the team finish strong. If that happens the grade will change.

 

[bumperkisser]

D

As others have mentioned, he's touted for developing his players and at the end of the season we basically still had prospects that were expected to take the next step this year down in the AHL.

So many games and instances where his lineups made no sense and cost us points. I.e. MDZ never playing. 4th line matched up against the other teams top lines and in defensive zone draws also with our 3rd pairing out there.

Our special teams being complete ass.

 

[The Midnight Burrito]

Would give him an incomplete. But was likely going to average a C/C+. Didn’t have much to work with due to the injuries and too many AHL guys filling the roster for good portions of the season.

The kids not really taking off has been the biggest disappointment and even tough some vets bounced back others took a step back or stayed the same.

I think next season he has to give players shorter leashes. I understand they wanted players to play though struggles but it didn’t work for the most part. That right there is a coaching decision. Should also start holding vets accountable who are playing lazy.

This is where I am. It's an incomplete for the year. You also just can't hand-wave away the injuries and say yeah, but he's supposed to develop players. It's not his fault we had zero depth to begin with, and that we were wracked by injuries. There wasn't a hell of a lot of developing going on this season.

 

[Leonardo87]

This is where I am. It's an incomplete for the year. You also just can't hand-wave away the injuries and say yeah, but he's supposed to develop players. It's not his fault we had zero depth to begin with, and that we were wracked by injuries. There wasn't a hell of a lot of developing going on this season.

I expect players to be held more accountable next year, kids and vets. If they are not producing or struggling, bench them, healthy scratch them, or send them down (if a kid), gotta get some development from the kids, and need them to get over that 40 point plateau if they are going to be a Top 6 forward in the near future.

Players like Jones and Sherwood, are destined more for the 4th line. So I think Steel had his hands full and couldn’t get much done on that 3rd line, but did expect more from him this year overall. I am expecting guys like him and Terry to start producing around or above a .50 clip. I get it, very difficult with a really bad PP, but if they can get someone to QB and shoot, the points and goals will come. This is the result of having one of the worst PP’s in the league and 2nd least opportunities.

I think it was kinda bittersweet the season ended this early for Anaheim. Season ain’t coming back, well not for us at least. Will keep everyone rested and keep more tire to thread for the vets who I think will be hungry next year to get the ship back on track.

Eakins is going to have a bigger challenge next year, and when I think he should really be judged. We all knew this season was going to be a long shot to be competitive, of course injuries which were a lot didn’t help, but still.

 

[Sean Garrity]

Debated between a C and D. Iirc, one of his most positive attributes was the development of our prospects... but IMO I can’t think of one that took a step forward outside of maybe Larsson. Perhaps the prospects are more to blame here, perhaps it wasn’t necessarily a lack of development as opposed to a simple plateau that they’ll all overcome, perhaps it was Murray, perhaps the situation wasn’t right, perhaps we overrated them, perhaps I f***ing don’t know I just expected much more from our young players this year with a lot of the “credit” due to Eakins. I’m sorry, I guess I’m just disappointed with our lack of production from our “elite” prospects.

 

[Hockey Duckie]

This is where I am. It's an incomplete for the year. You also just can't hand-wave away the injuries and say yeah, but he's supposed to develop players. It's not his fault we had zero depth to begin with, and that we were wracked by injuries. There wasn't a hell of a lot of developing going on this season.

I remember accounting how good we were defensively with a healthy Lindholm-Manson pairing to begin the season. The team was on fire at the beginning of the season! The Manson went down, Guhle went down, and Lindholm went down to injury, which is why we had to trade for Gudbranson. Eventually, even Fowler succumbed to injury as we were without a top-4 (Lindholm, Manson, Fowler, and Guds). We just couldn't recover from our lack of defensive depth, but, then again, no other team would either losing their top-2 blue liners while hoping young prospects can thrive in their stead. Therein lies the problem. Our top end vets are supposed to shelter the youth so they can thrive in less pressure situations.

That extends to our forward group and it was lacking. Part of it is due to injuries as both Ritchie and Kase played under 50 games for the Ducks. Both of these players are supposed to be our bridge players between the older vets and the youth movement. Rakell is the biggest disappointment and I still don't know how he gets on the board often.

Murray tinkered at the TDL. Kase is too injury prone. Ritchie was finally unloaded. We traded for F Sprong last year because we lacked forward talent at scoring, but course corrected as we have a lot of forward prospects now and traded Sprong for D Djoos. Kase netted a RHD prospect.

With more talent at Eakins' disposal while missing our top-3 or top-4 defense corps, the team was flying for wins after the TDL.

Mass injuries is something you can't discount. Lack of talent depth is GM Murray's problem. The lack of defensive depth was at the expense of spending so much draft capital on forwards as well as trading for NHL forward talents because drafting NHL forwards is Murray's Moby Dick... which still continues today b/c none of our forward prospects look like they're NHLers right now.

Incomplete is the only grade I can give at this time as Leonardo aptly pointed out why. Heck, I thought we still had an outside chance at the playoffs still. LoL

 

[The Midnight Burrito]

Debated between a C and D. Iirc, one of his most positive attributes was the development of our prospects... but IMO I can’t think of one that took a step forward outside of maybe Larsson. Perhaps the prospects are more to blame here, perhaps it wasn’t necessarily a lack of development as opposed to a simple plateau that they’ll all overcome, perhaps it was Murray, perhaps the situation wasn’t right, perhaps we overrated them, perhaps I f***ing don’t know I just expected much more from our young players this year with a lot of the “credit” due to Eakins. I’m sorry, I guess I’m just disappointed with our lack of production from our “elite” prospects.

It's early still but you should think about adjusting your priors about how "elite" our prospects ever were.

 

[Sean Garrity]

It's early still but you should think about adjusting your priors about how "elite" our prospects ever were.

Absolutely, hence the elite being in quotation marks. Perhaps best is the more appropriate word there.

 

[Ducks DVM]

Incomplete. When playing with a “complete” roster I give him a “B”. The style is far more exciting than we have been watching for 3 years, that team could score, and he managed to turn Gudbranson back into a top 4 D. The team looked good at the start of the season, before the injuries, and looked decent again at the end of the season.

I’m curious where people giving him D’s felt the team was going to finish this year. My prediction was more fun to watch, but similar results as last year - they just aren’t a very talented bunch. I pretty much got what I expected.

 

[Paul4587]

Incomplete. When playing with a “complete” roster I give him a “B”. The style is far more exciting than we have been watching for 3 years, that team could score, and he managed to turn Gudbranson back into a top 4 D. The team looked good at the start of the season, before the injuries, and looked decent again at the end of the season.

I’m curious where people giving him D’s felt the team was going to finish this year. My prediction was more fun to watch, but similar results as last year - they just aren’t a very talented bunch. I pretty much got what I expected.

I gave him a D. I genuinely expected to be in a WC spot. I thought our kids had made enough strides to be middle 6ers/bottom pair guys and with Eakins at the helm who was familiar with them they would continue to contribute. Instead all of them except maybe Larsson regressed from where they were at last April. I was torn between a C and a D because while we were more competitive and more entertaining than last year at the end of the day Eakins had a similar record to that of where we finished in 2018-19 which featured the worst coaching I've ever seen.

 

[MMC]