The Ducks have hired four-time Stanley Cup winner Joel Quenneville as head coach, less than a year after he was reinstated by the NHL, sources confirmed.
Quenneville, 66, won a Cup as an assistant with the Colorado Avalanche before capturing three championships in six campaigns with the Chicago Blackhawks.
“Today is a great day for the Anaheim Ducks,” Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek said in a statement in announcing Quenneville as the 12th head coach in franchise history. “Joel is a proven winner and one of the top coaches in NHL history. We believe this is a major step forward in our process of being a perennial playoff contender.”
The last of those three Cups, in 2015, saw Chicago rally to beat the Ducks in a seven-game Western Conference finals series.
The first of the titles, in 2010, came shortly after the organization became aware of allegations of sexual assault by former Chicago video coach Brad Aldrich toward Blackhawks prospect Kyle Beach.
More than a decade later, the league investigated, finding that Quenneville and executives Stan Bowman and Al MacIsaac provided insufficient response to the allegations. All three were barred from seeking employment from October 2021 until July of last year. Quenneville was coaching the Florida Panthers at the time, and previously he had stewarded St. Louis (1996-2004) and Colorado (2005-2008).
“Over the last two weeks, we conducted interviews with many outstanding coaching candidates, while simultaneously conducting a comprehensive review of what took place while Joel was head coach of the Blackhawks in 2010,” Verbeek said. “We spoke with dozens of individuals, including advocates for positive change in hockey and leadership of the NHL, which last July officially cleared Joel to seek employment in the league. Our findings are consistent with Joel’s account that he was not fully aware of the severity of what transpired in 2010. It is clear that Joel deeply regrets not following up with more questions at the time, has demonstrated meaningful personal growth and accountability, and has earned the opportunity to return to coaching.”
Bowman’s reinstatement led to his being snatched off the market quickly, with the son of Hall of Fame coach Scotty Bowman – the elder Bowman is the only coach with more career NHL wins than Quenneville – now serving as general manager of the Edmonton Oilers. Quenneville did not have to wait too much longer for his call.
It wasn’t dissimilar to the one he received from the Blackhawks in 2008, after they fired franchise legend Dennis Savard just four games into the season after his ascendant group narrowly missed the playoffs. What followed were seven seasons that saw the Blackhawks make the conference finals five times and go 3-0 in Stanley Cup Final series.
In Anaheim, Quenneville replaces Greg Cronin, who in his second season presided over the biggest year-over-year improvement in the Western Conference standings and saw most of the Ducks’ core young players step forward by the 2024-25 season’s end.
“I’m excited to join the Anaheim Ducks,” Quenneville said. “This is the organization I wanted to restart my career with and am truly grateful for this opportunity. The Ducks have incredible ownership, management and passionate fans. In nearly four years away from the game, I have learned from my prior mistakes and realized it will be actions over words that demonstrate my commitment to being a better leader.”
Quenneville has compiled a 969-572-77-150 record (.612%) in his four stops.. He inherits a fledgling group from a franchise that has been drafting high year after year. The Ducks have missed the postseason seven consecutive times, and Chicago had gone fishing in April during nine of 10 years prior to Quenneville’s arrival.
When he took the gig in Chicago, he said he could never have envisioned the success they enjoyed, one rivaled in the same era only by the Pittsburgh Penguins’ triumphs in 2009, 2016 and 2017.
“That’s dreaming in color times 10,” said Quenneville in 2015, immediately following the conference finals win over the Ducks. “The core has been through a lot of challenges and battles. They were still a very young group at the time. I was very fortunate to (arrive) with a team that was sitting on go, and they keep going.”
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