Story by
Last-place San Jose Sharks fire head coach David Quinn
- Story by
- Last-place San Jose Sharks fire head coach David Quinn
The last-place San Jose Sharks fired coach David Quinn on Wednesday after finishing with a historically bad season.
The Sharks (19-54-9) became the first NHL team in the salary cap era to fail to reach 20 wins during a full 82-game season. They started the season 0-10-1 and had a league-worst -150 goal differential.
Advertisement
They'll have the best draft lottery odds and could get the No. 1 pick for the first time in team history. But if they are able to select the top prospect, Hobey Baker Award winner Macklin Celebrini , a new Sharks coach will be guiding his first NHL season.
"After going through our end of the season process of internal meetings and evaluating where our team is at and where we want our group to go, we have made the difficult decision to make a change at the head coach position," Sharks general manager Mike Grier said in a statement .
The San Jose Sharks have fired head coach David Quinn after two seasons.
"David is a good coach and an even better person. I would like to personally thank him for his hard work over these past two seasons. He and his staff did an admirable job under some difficult circumstances, and I sincerely appreciate how they handled the situation."
Advertisement
Quinn had a 41-98-25 record in 164 games with the Sharks after being hired in July 2022.
The Sharks are rebuilding and had shed high-priced veterans recently ( Timo Meier last season, Erik Karlsson in the offseason and Tomas Hertl and Anthony Duclair at this year's deadline). Captain Logan Couture was limited to six games this season because of injury and Hertl missed time with injury before his trade.
"The roster was what it was. It wasn't a playoff team by any means," Grier told reporters . "I think they did a good job. There were some things that I don't really want to get into too much that we would have liked to have seen better. After going through our process … of evaluating everything, I just felt that was what we needed to do, get a different voice for the group."
The Buffalo Sabres were the first team to fire a coach after the regular season. Lindy Ruff was hired this week to replace fired Don Granato . Seven coaches were fired during the regular season.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: David Quinn fired as San Jose Sharks coach
