According to a report for NHL Network insider Kevin Weekes, general manager Mike Grier has made his decision. He will name David Quinn as the new head coach for the San Jose Sharks, giving the coach a three-year deal.
**Breaking News** 🚨 📰
Per @Sheng_Peng , and @FriedgeHNIC , the @SanJoseSharks have hired David Quinn as their new HC, sources tell me it’s a 3 Yr contract. @espn @NHL #HockeyTwitter pic.twitter.com/EGlQnVsMv9
— Kevin Weekes (@KevinWeekes) July 22, 2022
David Quinn Era Begins
The rumours around the San Jose Sharks in this year of upheaval are all about the unexpected. The ownership group insisted their general manager would be away from the usual suspects. They lived up to that promise with Mike Grier. Now general manager Mike Grier has brought in the current head coach of the US Men’s Hockey Team David Quinn.
While Quinn has been an NHL head coach before, it was to very middling returns. His time with the New York Rangers totalled 208 games between 2018-19 and 2020-21 with a record of 96-87-25. To call this ‘middling’ is perhaps unfair to Quinn, as he clearly did better than the team expected. His hiring came after the famous “Letter to the Fans” from Glen Sather and Jeff Gorton.
The Rangers finished 18th in the league in the 2019-20 season and lost their playoff-qualifying series, but still won the first overall pick for the 2020 entry draft. They still missed the playoffs in the one-year Eastern Division by a considerable margin, though what Rangers management expected is still a bit confusing. He and the rest of his coaching staff were caught in a massive purge of the Rangers administration in 2021. Since Quinn was a John Davidson hire, perhaps it was no surprise that the coaching staff were expelled at the same time.
What This Means For the Sharks
San Jose is in an even more precarious position than the Rangers were. The Sharks have a multitude of ageing veterans on long-term deals, millions of dollars of dead cap space for years to come, and a miserable record over the past three years. The hope is that some of the younger players can step into some middle-six and middle-pair ice time. Quinn might be the right choice there, despite the synchronicity of getting his first NHL head coaching win against the Sharks in 2018.
Will David Quinn have a successful tenure in San Jose? pic.twitter.com/qWdBvkK5xg
— Beerly Hockey (@BeerlyHockey) July 22, 2022
Most of David Quinn’s experience is with younger players at the collegiate level. Before his hiring by the Rangers, he coached at Boston University for five consecutive seasons where the Terriers compiled a 105-69-21 record. The program graduated several NHL players under Quinn’s tutelage – including Jordan Greenway and Dante Fabbro, for instance. The hope has to be that he’ll be able to incorporate new players into a system that will, ideally, be “graduating” older players out.
