Greg Cronin bullish on Eagles’, Avs’ future – whenever hockey resumes

Greg Cronin, head coach of the Colorado Eagles, has passed his days during this pandemic like most others – and unlike most others.

He’s mostly been cooped up in his Fort Collins home, unable to go to his native Massachusetts because of more stringent shelter-in-place restrictions there. He’s compensated for that by getting out of the house and practicing some extreme social isolation, hiking some of the area’s most off-beat trails by himself, exploring as much of the area as he can on foot.

“It’s not like I couldn’t see some of the area before, but during this time of the shutdown, I’ve really gotten to experience more of the real beauty of the area, of the Rocky Mountain West. It’s just a place of such natural beauty,” said Cronin, the coach of the Colorado Eagles, the Avalanche’s American Hockey League affiliate.

Cronin, who has always been a fitness fanatic, converted a room in his Fort Collins condominium to one filled with weights and other gear, so he passes some of his days inside sculpting a body that, at age 56, would be the envy of probably three-quarters of guys have his age. A student of history, Cronin also passes his time with a considerable amount of reading, with the Bill O’Reilly series of historical nonfiction titles some of his particular favorites.

His main occupation, that of hockey coach, has taken a pause, and nobody really knows when he and other AHL coaches will be able to get behind a bench again. The league recently officially canceled the rest of its regular season and playoffs, and won’t award a Calder Cup for the first time since it was introduced in 1937. The AHL is almost wholly dependent on fans being in the stands for its livelihood, so until crowds are able to safely assemble in large numbers again, the return of the league remains uncertain.

At the time of the shutdown, in  March, the Eagles possessed a solid 34-18-4 record, just out of first place in the Pacific Division, and Cronin believes the team could have gone on a legitimate Calder Cup run.

“The biggest issue we thought we’d have, and what we discussed as coaches before the season, was our goaltending. But we got very good goaltending, from Hunter Miska (16-6-3, .924 saves percentage) and Adam Werner (18-10-1, .909),” Cronin said.

Cronin, like any other minor-pro hockey coach, has to walk the tightrope of winning at his level with the Eagles, all the while knowing he could have some of his best players taken away at any time by the NHL parent club. And, hope that the players he does send up to the Avalanche perform ably. It would seem, therefore, that Cronin’s was a job well done this season, as several call-ups from the Eagles really helped the Avs out at times.

There were a couple of big goals scored by Martin Kaut later in the season, for instance, some strong goaltending from Werner that won a game in Winnipeg and some decent depth play from forward T.J. Tynan. More important, perhaps, top prospects such as Conor Timmins, Shane Bowers, A.J. Greer and Kaut all seemed to improve from the year before.

Then there was the stunning development of defenseman Ryan Graves, whose game started to really improve when Cronin took the helm of the Eagles in 2018.

Timmins, the Avs’ second-round pick in 2017, played 40 games with the Eagles, posting three goals, 27 points and a minus-1.

“His hockey IQ is really high,” Cronin said of Timmins. “For him, it’s just a question of getting stronger and just playing more games.”

On Bowers, Cronin said pretty much the same thing: smart player, good talent, just needs to keep maturing and getting stronger.

One player who earned some strong praise from Cronin was the 22-year-old Greer, whose play really improved after a slow start that probably wasn’t done any favors by some off-ice trouble the previous summer. By the shutdown, however, Greer had 16 goals and 32 points in 47 games, with 87 penalty minutes.

“I was really very impressed by what he did this year, with his leadership on and off the ice with our group,” said Cronin, 56, a native of Arlington, Mass., who played collegiately at Colby College. “I think he took some strides with his maturity and willingness to listen and learn. He did everything we asked of him.”

On Kaut, the Avs’ first-round pick from 2018, Cronin said his work ethic improved and that “he might be one of those guys whose game is better at the NHL level than the A. It’ll be up to him, but he does what you ask of him.”

When Cronin was hired by the Avs in 2018, after several years as an assistant coach in the NHL with the Islanders and Maple Leafs, some wondered if he and the team might view each other as an interim solution to bigger future goals. But now that he’s had two years on the Eagles bench and gotten to experience life as a head coach again, Cronin says he’s felt rejuvenated in some ways. He admits he was more of an older-school kind of guy and coach earlier in his career, and had to adjust to a new way of communicating with younger players.

“It used to be a one-way conversation with players, but now it’s more of a two-way conversation. You have to adapt to that in today’s game,” he said. “These kids today, they have the same stats and other information at their disposal as anyone else. They want to know why they’re being told do something a certain way. But I really enjoy it, being able to help shape the careers of these kids. My goal, for every one of them, is to get to that next level. If you can play a part in that, to help others succeed and grow, then you’re doing your job and it’s a rewarding feeling. I think this organization, the Eagles and the Avalanche, is doing things the right way. We all hope to be able to get back to doing what we love to do very soon.”