On July 1, the day free agency opened and following the announcement of the signing of veteran forward Mikael Granlund, the Anaheim Ducks announced they had filled out their coaching staffs at both the NHL and AHL levels.
As had been reported the week prior, Jay Woodcroft (48) was hired to run the forwards and power play. He entered the 2025 offseason as one of the NHL’s top head coaching candidates, even interviewing for the Ducks vacancy, but after a second consecutive summer missing out on the coaching carousel, he joined Joel Quenneville’s staff in Anaheim.
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“Jay and I have a long history. He was in Detroit when I was there with the Detroit Red Wings, he was the video coach there,” Pat Verbeek said after the hiring announcements. “He’s really grown as a coach. He ran the power play when he was in San Jose, and had a top-ten power play when he was there.
“What I like is how he teaches progressions, whether it’s the breakouts, whether it’s the plays that get made in the zone to create chances. I really love that part about his coaching and his presentation.”
On the other side of Quenneville, opposite Woodcroft, will be Ryan McGill (56) to run the defensemen and penalty kill. McGill has been a head coach at both the CHL and AHL levels. He was an assistant with the Vegas Golden Knights from their inception in 2017 until 2022, whereafter he joined the New Jersey Devils, where he’d been an assistant for the past three seasons.
“Ryan’s going to run the defense,” Verbeek stated. “In New Jersey, I think this year, he was top-two in the league as far as the penalty kill. We went through the last three years with him, so his first year there, he was top-four, fell to top-ten, and then last year, second overall. If we get anywhere close to that, I’ll be ecstatic.”
McGill’s Devils had the second-best PK in the NHL in 2024-25 (82.7%), the tenth-best in 2023-24 (80.7%), and the fourth-best in 2022-23 (82.6%).
Both Woodcroft and McGill will be expected to flip one of the Ducks’ greatest areas of weakness, special teams, into an area of strength. In 2024-25, they had the 29th-ranked PK, killing at a 74.2% clip, and the 32nd-ranked PP, converting at a horrendous 11.8% clip. With the talent on both sides of the puck on the roster, those numbers were clearly viewed as unacceptable. Merely raising both units to league average will contribute to an improvement in the league standings in 2025-26.
The Ducks also added Andrew Brewer (39) to the coaching staff. Brewer was Hockey Canada’s video coach from 2011-2014, the Detroit Red Wings video coach in 2014-15, and the Florida Panthers video coach from 2020-2022. He has experience as an NHL assistant, coaching the Toronto Maple Leafs from 2016 to 2020. It’s unclear what his day-to-day responsibilities will look like.
“We just really focused in on quality quality coaching,” Verbeek continued. “I feel very, very fortunate that we got the guys we got. Mixed in with Joel, I think we’ve got an outstanding staff.”
The NHL club wasn’t the only team in the organization to round out its coaching staff on July 1. The San Diego Gulls hired Dave Manson and Michael Babcock to be assistants to head coach Matt McIlvane.
Manson (58), father of eight-year Ducks defenseman Josh Manson, most notably coached alongside Woodcroft both with the Bakersfield Condors in the AHL from 2018 to 2021 and the Edmonton Oilers of the NHL from 2021 to 2023. He was let go when Woodcroft was, just six games into the 2023-24 season.
Manson played for 16 years and 1103 games in the NHL from 1986 to 2002 for the Chicago Blackhawks, Dallas Stars, Edmonton Oilers, and Phoenix Coyotes/Winnipeg Jets.
It is presumed Manson will run the defensemen and penalty kill for the Gulls.
Michael Babcock (30), son of longtime NHL coach and former Ducks head coach Mike Babcock, joins the Gulls after spending the last two seasons in the St. Louis Blues organization as a skills coach.
As a player, Babcock played prep school hockey in Michigan, for the Fargo Force of the USHL, and Merrimack College for four seasons in the NCAA, before playing a season overseas in France’s top professional division.
Babcock will presumably run the forwards and power play in San Diego.
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