Verbeek didn't "join at the bottom of a rebuild." That is a blatant lie. He inherited a team that was 3rd in the Pacific at all-star break, in year 3 of the Murray rebuild.
At the 2021-22 TDL, Verbeek opted to blow up the team and reset the rebuild. In doing so, he bought himself about five years of making mistakes before he's fired.
Year 1 of rebuild (2022-23): Failed FA class. Strome and Vatrano are not top-6 players. Klingberg was a huge dud. The additions of Kulikov and Beaulieu couldn't help the moribund blueline.
Year 2 of rebuild (2023-24): FA class looks better with Gudas, Lyubushkin, and Killorn. But Lyubushkin was traded away (a PK'er), Killorn took forever to get healthy, and Gudas is now showing his age when he started playing over 20 minutes a game. The Carlsson novel load mgmt proved to be just a fictional novel. Also, Verbeek screwed up by not signing Zegras and Drysdale before training camp started. Verbeek totally f***ed that up for this season.
- Then there's the coaching.
- Last year's record after 65 games: 21-35-9 (51 pts)
- This year's record after 65 games: 23-39-3 (49 pts)
- Then there's the 1-goal game lies.
- Last year's 1-goal game record in 65 games: 26 games; 14-3-9 (37 pts)
- This year's 1-goal game record in 65 games: 27 games; 13-11-3 (29 pts)
Losing Rico and Silf means the team will get younger next season. Verbeek said he's expecting six to seven 20 year olds to join the Ducks next season. We had about eight rookies in the AHL this year! Talk about having a bunch of darts and hoping a couple stick.
Because the lack of good, veteran layering with the youths, it'll be the youths teaching the youths most of the time. Waiting on that many youths mature is the reason why it will take a longer time to return to relevancy and why Verbeek gets four to five years. He can boast we are the #1 team in future prospects this year and #2 last year. That's where we're banking our top talents will come from.
What firing Verbeek could do is potentially have a new GM do better at pro scouting to surround the kids with better veterans and maybe hire a coach that's better at the pro level of teaching kids. The likeliness of firing Verbeek is very slim b/c the Samueli's know it's a reset rebuild.