Joel Quenneville Back in Florida, Faces Panthers with Anaheim Ducks

Joel Quenneville Back in Florida, Faces Panthers with Anaheim Ducks

Well, Joel Quinnville, head coach of the Anaheim Ducks. Welcome back to South Florida. Thank you, George. Good to be back here. You know, it’s been uh been a while, but uh certainly uh excited to be back in the game. Uh got a fun young team uh working with them and kind of reminds me when I first got here in Florida there and uh you know, you guys had a lot of success over that time and uh watched your team play a lot and uh you know, what a what a run you guys had. So, it’s uh you know, I’m just happy to be back in the game and uh looking forward to uh you know, working with this young group that’s got got a lot of potential ahead of it. I was going to ask you, you like taking some of these young teams, right? It’s worked out, it worked out pretty well in Chicago, it worked out pretty well in Florida and Well, we’ll see. I know that we hope we got a couple young guys that you got a Taser Kane and we got Barky and uh you got some young players like that that uh can really change the franchise. And I think that uh once this group here uh you know we grasp you know how to play without the puck a little bit better get more depth and uh but uh once we get pretty good I think it uh that next level’s not that far away. So we hope at some point this year we we’re going to push ourselves to be one of those teams that are going to get to get in the playoffs. And I think once we find that way uh you know I think we go from there. When you came to South Florida, the talk was, “Okay, you know, throw the Panthers and you saw something in this team that you thought could be pretty good. It’s proven itself out.” Was it kind of tough to watch from afar that the success they had? Uh, you know, after Well, there’s a lot of guys there was happy for, a lot of people I was happy for. So, that was part of it. Um, and it wasn’t like uh the circumstances were that uh whatever happened happened, but at the same time uh you know, it’s the way it was. It’s the way it is. I mean, so it was like, you know, I felt I was happy for the way that uh you know, I had some exposure to some good players. I got to learn from them as well. Um and uh you know, our business is the way it is. and uh you know getting back into it and maybe having the same impact at an early time here with this group is what uh we’re looking forward to doing and uh but that was a uh a good recipe for what they have done since then um as well. And let’s be honest, your your term time here was weird, right? I mean, you have the co your first year shut down, go to the bubble, second year, what, 56 game schedule. Then the third year, you know, we know that. Yeah. All the years were kind of a little bit incomplete. So, um, but, uh, I’d say, uh, the thing is that each year I thought they were making progress in a good way. I mean, they made some great deals. I made some really nice moves with their team and their organization and uh you know that helped as well but certainly a lot of the pieces were here when I was here and uh you know that one year right off the bat uh that we went to the bubble you know who knows how that could have gone. I mean, you know, you you look back in the next year, uh that we give Tampa, one of the the best series that uh you know, when when I think the the scores on the series was a little closer than what it was, but uh we just coming off the game in Tampa that reminded me of that playoff series, but yeah, it was just one of those Yeah, a young team. I think you used three goalies in that Tampa series. Yeah. Yeah, we did. Yeah. Um and just a little bit about your Anaheim Ducks. I mean, young team calcul coming off the loss to Tampa, but you liking what you’re seeing so far this year. The guys have uh the attitude’s been great. I think the guys are really excited about uh trying to make this a year where we’re taking the next step, you know, and we got some good young skill, got some tremendous amount of speed, have a lot of a lot of guys that uh got a lot of young guys that are big part of that group. And then we got some older guys with experience can help us guide us as well. But uh there’s a little gap there of the young and the old in the middle.

Former Florida Panthers coach Joel Queneville talks about returning to South Florida on Oct. 27, 2025.

Quenneville’s Anaheim Ducks play the host Panthers on Tuesday in Sunrise.

This is the first time he will be back in the Sunrise arena since his final game four years ago.

Quenneville, a three-time Stanley Cup champ with the Chicago Blackhawks, coached the Panthers from 2019 until his resignation seven games into the 2021-22 season.

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