{"id":85469,"date":"2025-07-23T08:33:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T08:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/85469\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T08:33:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T08:33:08","slug":"strome-confident-ducks-can-reach-the-next-level-after-busy-offseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/85469\/","title":{"rendered":"Strome confident Ducks can reach ‘the next level’ after busy offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO —<\/strong> Ryan Strome<\/a> has loved everything about his time with the Anaheim Ducks, except one thing.<\/p>\n

The lack of winning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think that the last three years have been pretty tough,\u201d Strome told NHL.com at the 11th annual Smilezone Celebrity Golf Tournament at Lionhead Golf Club in Brampton, Ontario, on Monday. \u201cThe year before I came to Anaheim, I was with the (New York) Rangers and we went to the Conference Final. I kind of knew Anaheim was at a different stage but losing kind of wears on you. So now to see some light at the end of the tunnel and to see us trying to turn that corner and make the right moves to take that next step is exciting to see it through.\u201d<\/p>\n

The forward is entering the fourth season of a five-year contract he signed with Anaheim on July 13, 2022. The first two saw the Ducks finish with 58 and 59 points, respectively, but last season saw them take a jump, finishing with a 21-point improvement at 80.<\/p>\n

Anaheim has not qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs since 2017-18, but the way general manager Pat Verbeek has operated during the offseason provides reason for optimism and suggests he wants to see the playoff drought end as soon as this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of hard work the last couple years but to see the optimism about the young players and a new coach, it\u2019s exciting,\u201d Strome said. \u201cWhen you have that feeling going into camp that the sky\u2019s the limit, it\u2019s a good feeling. It\u2019s a great place to play and place to live and if we can add winning to that equation, it will be even more awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Verbeek\u2019s first move of significance came April 19 when he fired coach Greg Cronin after two seasons and replaced him with three-time Stanley Cup champion Joel Quenneville on May 8. Strome said he sees similarities with the Ducks compared to where the Chicago Blackhawks were in 2008 and Florida Panthers in 2019 when Quenneville was hired to coach those teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime you have a coach with that much success at different teams, his whole career, everywhere he\u2019s gone, he\u2019s won,\u201d Strome said. \u201cHe\u2019s been on the verge of the up and up whether it\u2019s Chicago, Florida, I think the similarities to our group are there with each group with the young talent and young core. I\u2019m excited. You don\u2019t get to play for legendary coaches everyday in your career.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoaches come and go in this League and they get fired very quickly. When you get one like ‘Q,’ you have to take advantage and learn as much as you can.\u201d<\/p>\n

On June 12, the Ducks acquired forward Chris Kreider<\/a> from the New York Rangers, then signed forward Mikael Granlund<\/a> to a three-year contract on July 1 as an unrestricted free agent.<\/p>\n

Kreider, 34, scored 22 goals in 68 games last season, 52 in 81 games in 2021-22 and has 326 in 883 NHL games. Strome, who was a teammate of Kreider\u2019s with the Rangers from 2018-22, said his acquisition is another sign that expectations have been raised.<\/p>\n

\u201c(He will bring) a lot of leadership,\u201d Strome said. \u201cHe\u2019s calm, very professional. He\u2019s had a lot of success, is very poised, and he\u2019s had a high pedigree of winning and individual success and any time you inject someone like that into your lineup, it just oozes and bleeds off onto everybody what he brings. It\u2019s also a sign of the times in the sense we are trying to add to the group and take a step. It sends a great message to the fan base, players and everyone in between and hopefully we can match this optimism with play on the ice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO — Ryan Strome has loved everything about his time with the Anaheim Ducks, except one thing. The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":85470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-85469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114901627924512291","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}