ways, for the improvement of this team, when we look at accountability, when we look at relevance,” general manager Pat Verbeek said via teleconference on Saturday afternoon.

Verbeek said that once his club was eliminated from playoff contention — in terms of this season’s goals, he said the team met or exceeded them, stating “we attained what we had looked to attain” — he began to inspect and evaluate its situation, leading him to believe “a different voice” was needed.

“In the end, it really wasn’t about wins and losses. When I talked about the concerns, some of those were things that could not be overcome with whatever measuring stick you wanted to apply to it,” Verbeek said. “With that, with my experience as a player and being a manager, I thought at this time it was the right time to make the change.”

So what were these insurmountable preoccupations? Verbeek was more forthcoming about what wasn’t an issue than what was.

He said the culture built by Cronin was one of responsibility and diligence, and that there “wasn’t any concern in that area.”

When asked if there was any influence from the dressing room or the owner’s box, Verbeek responded: “I wouldn’t say, necessarily, that any of those (parties) influenced me.”

The Ducks’ abjectly miserable special teams showings, particularly on the power play, could have been low-hanging fruit to justify the dismissal. But Cronin didn’t run either area and Verbeek said that he “didn’t look at that, there was other reasons.”

Young core players like Leo Carlsson, Mason McTavish and Cutter Gauthier all had painfully unproductive starts to the campaign, but by season’s end they were buoying the Ducks offensively. Along those lines, Verbeek rejected the idea that the club was behind the development curve in some way.

“The team is right on course, and we’re improving,” Verbeek said. “Sometimes you have to look at scenarios where a (new) voice is needed to push this group to another level. You look at the teams that are in the playoffs, we need 10 more wins, and that’s what we need to figure out for next season. So, I’m going to look for those answers with the new coach.”

Under the aegis of confidentiality, Verbeek declined to elaborate. Cronin, who was flabbergasted during the season when he was asked about his job security and similarly blindsided by his dismissal meeting with Verbeek, didn’t seem to walk away with a much clearer picture than Verbeek presented publicly.

“I would say he was completely shocked, which is probably normal from his perspective, and that’s why this was very difficult and probably didn’t make a lot of sense to him,” said Verbeek, adding that he’d like to revisit the discussion with Cronin down the line.

Cronin inherited a team that was absolutely lifeless after the 2022-23 season and in the midst of a hard pivot toward a youth movement with a stated willingness to sacrifice short-term success for long-term prosperity. Cronin, who was on the ground floor of the U.S. National Team Development Program in addition to excelling at the collegiate and minor league levels between his assistant coaching gigs in the NHL, developed a culture that was mainly designed to build up young players.

Finding resonance with both first-year pros and fully molded veterans can be challenging for any coach, and more so with the heft of losing year after year for longer-tenured veterans like Cam Fowler (who was traded to St. Louis) and John Gibson (who performed well when available but also displayed overt disinterest at times).

Verbeek said that while he was not closing the door on coaches of any experience level or background, he did want to find a stronger equilibrium between more and less seasoned players.

“We have a diverse roster in the sense that we’ve got some good older players and we’ve got some really good younger players,” he said. “With them being in different stages of their careers, it’s difficult in the sense that older players need less, younger players need more. (I have to) find a guy that can meld that development and that diverse roster into a cohesive unit.”