The Ducks hired the quadruple winner of the Stanley Cup, Joel Quenneville, as head coach, less than a year after being reinstated by the NHL, confirmed sources.
Quenneville, 66, won a cup as an assistant with the Colorado avalanche before winning three championships in six campaigns with the Chicago Blackhawks. The last of these, in 2015, saw the Chicago rally to beat the Ducks in a series of finals of the western conference of seven games.
The first of the titles in 2010 came shortly after the organization became aware of the allegations of sexual assault by the former Chicago video coach, Brad Aldrich, to the Blackhawks prospect, Kyle Beach.
More than a decade later, the League investigated, noting that Quenneville and the leaders Stan Bowman and Al Macisaac provided an insufficient response to the allegations. All three were prevented from seeking a job from October 2021 to July from last year. Quenneville led the Florida panthers at the time, and previously he had managed St. Louis (1996-2004) and Colorado (2005-2008).
Bowman’s reinstatement led to being quickly snatched from the market, with the son of the renowned temple coach Scotty Bowman – The Elder Bowman is the only coach with more career victories in the NHL than Quenneville – who has now been Director General of Edmonton’s Oilers. Quenneville did not have to wait too long for his call.
It was no different from the one he received from Blackhawks in 2008, after dismissed the legend of the Dennis Savard franchise just four games from the season after his upward group barely missed the playoffs. What followed was seven seasons that saw the Blackhawks make the conference final five times and go 3-0 in the final series of the Stanley Cup.
In Anaheim, Quenneville replaces Greg Cronin, who, during his second season, chaired the largest improvement from one year to the next in the Western Conference classification and saw most of the young ducks’ basic players are advancing by the end of the 2024-25 season.
Quenneville also inherits a group emerging from a franchise that wrote a height year after year. The Ducks missed the after-season after-season series, and Chicago left in April in April during nine of the 10 years before the arrival of Quenneville.
When he took the concert in Chicago, he said that he could never have envisaged the success they knew, a rivalled at the same time only by the triumphs of Pittsburgh Penguins in 2009, 2016 and 2017.
“It dreams in Color Times 10,” said Quenneville in 2015, immediately after the victory of the conference finals on the Ducks. “The nucleus has gone through many challenges and battles. They were still a very young group at the time. I had the chance to (arrive) with a team that was seated from things, and they continue. ”
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
