On the verge of bringing in a new full-time general manager, the Sharks made sweeping and abrupt changes to their coaching staff, firing Bob Boughner as head coach and John MacLean, John Madden, and Dan Darrow as assistants.
The moves, which interim GM Joe Will said came after an exhaustive review, were made Thursday night and announced Friday morning — more than two months after the end of the regular season.
“Often these decisions are made immediately after the season. We weren’t prepared (to do) that,” Will said. “This coaching staff deserved to be in consideration moving forward and they truly have been all the way into here until this decision was made (Thursday).”
The decision to fire Boughner, MacLean, Madden, and Darrow clears the way for the Sharks’ next general manager to hire their own coaching staff. Reported candidates for the GM job include Ray Whitney and Mike Grier, and Darren Dreger of TSN reported Friday that Scott Mellanby’s name has also surfaced in some circles as the Sharks zero in on a hire.
The Sharks are going through their vetting process with the finalists, but there remains no timeline for a GM hire. Will felt he and other members of the Sharks’ front office were equipped to handle the NHL draft, which starts next Thursday, and the start of free agency on July 13.
“We’re not we’re not basing the hiring decision on timing with these things,” Will said. “We’re in a good spot. We’re in the homestretch with the candidates.”
Boughner, who took over as the Sharks’ coach in Dec. 2019 after Pete DeBoer was fired, had a 67-85-23 record with San Jose in two-plus seasons as the team missed the playoffs in three consecutive years for the first time in franchise history.
Will commended Boughner for the job he did integrating younger players into the lineup over the past two seasons but said the organization wanted a “fresh start,” and that the move allows the next GM to “find their head coach and to partner up with him moving forward.”
The Sharks’ job was Boughner’s second as an NHL head coach after he went 80-62-22 in two years with Florida from 2017 to 2019. Boughner was let go in 2019 after the Panthers missed the playoffs in both seasons.
Boughner had one year remaining on the three-year contract he signed with the Sharks in Sept. 2020, when he was officially named the full-time head coach by former GM Doug Wilson.
This past season, the Sharks, after a strong start, went 32-37-13 and finished sixth in the Pacific Division.
“It’s not solely upon the performance of the coaches for this past season or anything else,” Will said. “It’s a shared thing between myself and our management team, the coaches, and the players. We all need to get better and that’s what we’ve done in this process. Looked at every single way that we can get better across the board.”
Will noted how Boughner and his staff worked under unusual circumstances, as the team took a step back after reaching the Western Conference final in 2019.
The Sharks also played through the COVID-19 pandemic almost throughout Boughner’s tenure and had to hold training camp in Scottsdale, Arizona before the 2020-2021 season because of Santa Clara County’s then-ban on contact sports.
The Sharks also played this past year without Evander Kane, their leading scorer from the 2020-2021 season.
Kane was suspended by the NHL for 21 games to start this past season, then placed on waivers and assigned to the AHL in late November. In January, the Sharks, believing Kane breached his contract and violated AHL COVID protocols, terminated the final three-plus seasons of the seven-year. $49 million deal he signed in May 2018.
The Sharks did not replace Kane’s production — something that Boughner spoke about toward the end of the season — and averaged just 2.57 goals per game, which ranked 30th in the 32-team NHL.
The NHL Players’ Association’s grievance on behalf of Kane against the Sharks will likely not have a resolution until after the start of free agency.
The Sharks have been searching for a general manager ever since Wilson stepped down on April 7, after months of a medical leave of absence. Boughner knew the search could have an impact on his job status when he did his season-ending exit interview.
“I would say this that, obviously, sooner than later, we’ll have to know so we can move forward,” Boughner said on May 2. “Whether that’s a new GM or whether that’s Joe or management or ownership making those decisions, you’d have to ask him.”
In that same interview, when he was asked when it would be ideal to get some clarity about his job status, so he and his staff can begin preparations for next season, Boughner said jokingly, “tomorrow?”
The timing of Boughner’s firing is unusually late in the cycle for a team that did not make the playoffs, and the decision to oust him now can be seen as quite unfair to him and his staff, with most NHL assistant coaching opportunities starting to get filled.
The list of available coaches with NHL experience includes Rick Tocchet, Claude Julien, Travis Green, David Quinn and Dave Tippett.
