One of the biggest moves of the Anaheim Ducks' 2025 offseason, perhaps the biggest move, was the hiring of Joel Quenneville as the 12th head coach in franchise history.
Quenneville (66) has a sparkling resume as the second-winningest coach in NHL history and has his name engraved on the Stanley Cup three times as the head coach of the 2010, 2013, and 2015 Chicago Blackhawks.
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He hasn’t coached an NHL game since he resigned from his job as head coach of the Florida Panthers on Oct. 28, 2021, following a meeting with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman regarding his involvement in the 2010 Blackhawks' sexual abuse case.
The NHL reinstated Quenneville, along with Stan Bowman and Al McIsaac, on July 1, 2024. He was hired by Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek on May 8, 2025, after parting ways with Greg Cronin on April 19.
As expected, the hiring faced and will likely continue to face pushback from those in the community who support the Ducks, as well as from fans around the league.
Initial criticism has seemingly dulled with time, and especially after Quenneville’s introductory press conference, where, paired with Verbeek and ownership’s (Henry Samueli) insistence upon having done due diligence, Quenneville arrived with a lengthy list of names to whom he had reached out and been educated by over the last four years regarding his missteps from 15 years ago and his continued journey of growth.
Quenneville has precedented success in his last two stops with teams in similar situations to the 2025-26 Anaheim Ducks, looking to turn the corner on their rebuild and open their playoff contention window. He took over as the head coach of the Chicago Blackhawks early in the 2008-09 season, a season in which they ended their five-season playoff drought and reached the Western Conference final. The next season (2009-10), they won their first of three Stanley Cups in six years, forming the only modern-day NHL dynasty.
He was hired as the head coach of the Florida Panthers ahead of the 2019-20 season and built the foundation of today’s iteration of the organization that has been to three consecutive Stanley Cup finals and won two.
On paper, the hiring is more than logical, but Quenneville’s past has the potential to become a distraction if not properly addressed.
The other factor to consider is how NHL styles and tactics have evolved in the four years since he was last behind a bench, begging the question of whether, at 67 years old (by the start of the 2025-26 season) if the game may have passed him by.
Quenneville has stated he’s watched and studied NHL hockey every day since he was last involved in the game and has since put together one of the most elite coaching staffs with the hirings of Jay Woodcroft, Ryan McGill, and Andrew Brewer. Judging from his previous position with the Florida Panthers and how he led his staff, consisting of Andrew Brunette, Derek MacKenzie, and Ulf Samuelsson, he delegates much of the tactics and systems to his assistants. So that area may not be of much concern.
In an offseason where nine NHL coaching jobs were vacant and a wide spectrum of qualified candidates were available on the market, including Woodcroft, Rick Tocchet, Mike Sullivan, and David Carle (all of whom the Ducks at least expressed peripheral interest in), the hiring of Quenneville is bold, but has the potential for the greatest reward, so much so that the Ducks were willing to withstand any amount of backlash, completely confident in Quenneville’s growth and their process of due diligence.
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