Sharks considering in-house head-coaching hire

The Sharks have interviewed assistant coach Ryan Warsofsky recently, reports Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now. He’ll be considered for a promotion after the team fired bench boss David Quinn last month with one season left on his contract.

Warsofsky, 36, has never been a head coach in the NHL, but this isn’t the first time he’s received interest. After a quick rise up the ranks in the AHL, reports indicated he was generating buzz among NHL front offices in the summer of 2022, although he settled for an assistant role on Quinn’s staff in San Jose.

His two-year run as an assistant with the Sharks thus far is his first-ever role in the NHL as a player or coach. After a collegiate career and one-year professional stint in 2011-12 that included stops in the Netherlands and American low minor leagues, Warsofsky ended his playing career and returned to his alma mater, Curry College, to assist their Division III program.

After one season, Warsofsky landed a job as an assistant with the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays, then the second-tier affiliate of the Bruins. Serving on the staff of future Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery, Warsofsky remained in his assistant role for three seasons before taking over as head coach in 2016 after Carbery left to be the head coach of the Ontario Hockey League’s Saginaw Spirit.

The Stingrays, now affiliated with Washington, continued to be successful with Warsofsky as their head coach and director of hockey operations. They didn’t win a division title under Warsofsky, but they did make the playoffs both times and advanced to the Kelly Cup Final in 2017. After posting an 88-44-12 record in two campaigns in South Carolina, Warsofsky joined the Hurricanes organization as an assistant coach with their AHL affiliate, the Charlotte Checkers.

Warsofsky lasted just one season in Charlotte before being promoted, assuming head coaching duties for the 2019-20 season after serving on Mike Vellucci’s Calder Cup-winning staff the year prior. He remained with the Hurricanes when they changed their AHL affiliation to the Chicago Wolves for 2020-21, capping off his time in the organization with a Calder Cup championship of his own in 2021-22 with future Carolina regulars Jalen Chatfield, Jack Drury, Pyotr Kochetkov and Stefan Noesen playing integral roles.

It was at that point that Warsofsky started garnering NHL consideration. After landing with the Sharks in 2022, he received his first call to the U.S. men’s national team, serving as an assistant under Quinn at the 2023 World Championship.

If he gets the job, Warsofsky would become the youngest head coach in the NHL by a mile, beating out Carbery by six years. The Sharks haven’t been firmly linked to other candidates on the market. However, there’s been a fair amount of speculation about Lightning assistant Jeff Halpern, Kraken assistant Jay Leach, former Sharks winger and AHL Ontario head coach Marco Sturm, ex-Sharks assistant and Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft, all of whom Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman suggested as fits on the “32 Thoughts” podcast late last month.