State of the Sharks: Coach Warsofsky

State of the Sharks: Coach Warsofsky

Coach, let’s begin with the exit interviews and meetings that you do with all the players. I mean, what a grueling process that must be to talk to everybody in depth. But I also imagine that there’s some pretty hard and straightforward conversations that happen there at the end of the season. Yeah. Uh yeah, it’s a long day, but you get through it and uh it’s important day. You reflect uh not just on the players, but myself. I want to know how our coaching staff can improve, how myself can improve from the players. And um there was some direct messages from from us and myself of where we need to get to to to be better next year. And so you mentioned your first goaround as a head coach at the NHL level. You’ve done this job before, but not here at the highest level. What is the self reflection? I don’t want to say evaluation. What’s the self-reflection after this first tour? You know, I think what I noticed, and it’s not like it was eye opening too much, but uh it’s usually one player there, two players here that lose win or lose you a hockey game. It’s a fine line between winning in this league and it’s tough to win this league. It’s hard to win in this league and um getting our players to have a better understanding of what it takes to win in this league uh will be the next, you know, the next step we have to take. All right, let’s make this very clear. Hockey guy, media guy, media guy looks at it and says, “Well, if the Sharks are a little bit better without the puck next year, that might be the first step towards the results.” Is that fair? Yeah, fair. Fair to say. Uh again, I think it starts with our puck play coming out of our back end and and being able to execute a little bit more at a little bit more high of a percentage. Uh and now we’re not in our defensive zone as much. So, um for sure we have to be better without the puck in our defensive zone and through the neutral zone. Um really in all three zones, but um you know, I think we did some some good things this year. Uh you take away our wins and losses and I think we took a step forward. Uh was it a big giant step? No. But it was a step uh in the right direction. Now we get to take that big step. The onegoal games are like the double-edged sword because on one hand a lot of them were losses, but on the other hand, maybe that’s one of the improvements and maybe that’s the next step next season. If you were to be a team next year that won a bunch of onegoal games, you’d probably feel like this group has some character. Yeah, for sure. You know, and um and you get some confidence from that and and you get some experience of of doing it and doing it time in and time out of when you’re in that situation. So, um that would be a big emphasis. Um you know, even overtime, I think we had 12, uh overtime losses or 11 overtime losses where, uh that’s an area we can improve in. Uh our three on three or four on four. Uh again, we’ll meet as a coaching staff and really go dive in and uh into a lot of different areas of where we can improve, what we want to change, what we want to tinker with, uh what we liked, what we didn’t like, and go forward. But, uh between that, the one goal games, our our special teams, uh if we can improve those, you know, areas, those are now more wins. And now we’re looking at a different position. Hey, speaking of the coaching staff and like we mentioned, your first go round as a head coach, how did they support you this year? Yeah, big, you know, we don’t realize, but they’re we’re with each other, you know, 18 hours a day almost some days. So, um, it’s a grind for for myself and our coaches, and we’re all in this together. And, you know, from Doug to Wise to Alms Spears or Nick and Cody, uh, we’re a very tight-knit staff. We’re close staff where there’s a lot of respect there. There’s a lot of support from everyone that um you know and there’s times where our penalty kill let in a couple and you know we have to be there for Doug and there’s times when our power play doesn’t come through there and we’re help helping wise and uh you know and there’s those guys supported me a lot of going through my first season in the National Hockey League and the ups and downs and the frustrations and and where we’re at. Uh it’s not easy on anyone. Uh, so you know, I’m very thankful for such a a great staff. And the ping-pong champion of the coaching staff was Yeah. Spears and got me wise. So I got to live with that all summer now. See, I actually didn’t know. I was that wasn’t really a setup to put you down. I’m sorry about that. Uh, I know this next question is more of a Mike Greer question, so I want to take it from that context. But as this team gets built for next season and especially through free agency, I understand the draft the next couple years, a lot of high first and second round picks, but in Shark seasons off season’s past, it was about all right, how do we get under the cap? This year, it’s going to almost be how do we even get to the floor? There’s going to be a lot of spending. if you have some input on what you’d like to see built for this team in free agency, what are the types of things and players maybe you think could complement what you already have? Yeah. Um, you know, I think we have a pretty good idea of what we need and and Mike will kind of attack that, but um, obviously it starts with competitive people and really good people and and then we can start continue to grow this thing with with some high-end hockey skill and and size and and and speed and uh, you know, puck playing ability. So, uh, again, we need to, you know, really, you know, zero in on some guys that are competitive, that are great guys in our locker room that want to be here. Um, and then we’ll start getting those types of players and those guys that can do certain things. So, um, we’ll see how the summer shakes out. We’re excited about it. Again, we have the draft coming up here. It’s going to happen very quickly and we’ll go from there. So, you need basically six more Tyler TF. That would do. That would do. Uh, for sure. And and Wenbergs and and whatnot. So, and Mario is the guys that are competitive and uh but we have a good foundation and we got to build around it. Looking at Mlin’s game from this year, if somebody were to say, well, he’ll get better to next year, I’m not even sure where he improves, how he improves. You probably have a better answer to this. How does somebody like that who impressed so many take a next step? Yeah, I think and he and he’s taken obviously we saw a special player and he’s done some really special things and he can do special things, you know, and I think he got better defensively throughout the year. Um the big thing for me and it’s something that we Mack and I talked about was finding more patience in his game. Uh whether that’s on the six on five, whether that’s on the offensive zone, whether that’s late in your shift, um you know, whether that’s putting himself better positions not to get hit. So, there’s some areas that we continue to to kind of, you know, push and uh and get better at and he has an understanding of that. I think he continue to um you know, work on his shot and and finding his accuracy in the shot and not having to shoot it through the goalender sometimes. So, um he’s got a pretty good plan. He’s a self-driven kid. He’s got a great foundation. He’s got a good uh routine and how he wants to improve. I mean, look, he was out skating the next day um after our last game of the year. That’s all I got to say. Yeah. No, it’s pretty amazing. I also want to make sure that um outside this team people obviously are going to focus on two and 71 for obvious reasons but there were so many other players I think I don’t want to say discovered this year but but that really kind of established themselves Colin Graph Shakir Mcmullan uh I loved when Canon was up here for a couple games Cam Lond as well too how do you see that next complimentary group to come up maybe and get some more time and experience next year I just I don’t want to bury them in terms of attention because I think uh they’re equally excited exc what’s coming. Yeah, for sure. You know, obviously Graford did a really good job. He came up here and surprised us, had a good training camp, went down and worked on the things that we asked him to work on. Um, you know, he gained trust in our coaching staff. Muk really took a a really big jump after the Four Nations break there and and, you know, stepped on it and had an understanding of how he needs to play in this league and uh was confident. So, those two guys, like you said, are really jumped out to us. And then there’s guys coming. We we saw Camel at the end of the year. um he’s going to come back a different player just from going through these 11 games and um you know there’s obviously guys that just joined the Barracuda and Musty and Chernishov um who will now come back for their second training third training camps and and and I have an understanding of what this organization’s all about. So um I if you’re a fan you should be super excited about the future and the players that are coming. I’ve seen a couple different players be named captain of this team over the years seen the process familiar with that. I’ve got in my mind like four different ways this could go. Uh, I think the main thing and the main takeaway though to get from you right now is that no matter what happens, it’s going to take some some time for this process to play out. How do you see the the process of figuring out what the team does next? Yeah, I think we’ll talk I’ll talk to Mike um, you know, the next couple days, you know, especially and then as the summer goes on and um, we’ll see where where it leads us and um, obviously it’s a big hole to fill. Uh, you know, Cooch was a a special player for a long time. uh he was our captain uh you know and you know wasn’t around as much this year but he was still helping our young players and and being a very good influence for them. So uh those those are conversations we’ll have as the summer goes on. All right, two more things I think next year looking at it already. You probably have the feeling of you don’t know what the quantification of this is, but you do need to make a tangible jump, right? And and not just for the outsiders, but also for people in this room, they want to see that the progress you all have been making actually becomes something they can put their hands on. Yeah, for sure. Uh it’s a result driven business. Uh and we obviously got to start winning some more hockey games. None of us, uh I think from Mike and his staff to our staff to the players want to go through this type of season again. Uh it was tough. It was frustrating. Um, you know, there was been some tough moments throughout the season of of losses when we’re in games. So, for sure, we got to take the next step, and that’s winning more hockey games. All right, last thing here. You got a little uh summer assignment. Congratulations, by the way, on being named coach of Team USA. Um, where does this even start? Because you’ve been so busy with the NHL team. Do you now start to put in the work in preparation for the the World Tournament? Yeah. Uh, right at it. Right at it. get get prepared for getting ready for meetings and talking to our, you know, Jeff Kelty who’s a GM of the team pretty much, you know, twice a day right now as far as building the roster. Um, it’s a lot. You try to put it to the side the last, you know, month of the season and work on just Shark stuff, but uh when there was a day off, there was more USA hockey trying to uh get prepared a little bit there. And now that the season’s kind of over, we’re doing meetings here. So, you’re kind of juggling both both jobs in a sense. But, I’m excited for it. I think it’s going to be a great It’s a great term. I’ve been there before with Quinny as an assistant coach. Um, you know, it’s been since 1933 since the US has won this thing. Uh, you know, the big message is, you know, it’s time. It’s time for us to win the tournament. Um, you know, obviously coming off four nations, the Olympics is is the following, you know, next next winter. So, uh, I’m excited for the tournament. Excited to get get over there and get to work and, uh, you know, see if we can win a gold medal. Imagine you coaching trying to shut guys named Ecklund and Cabbrini down. I mean, that’s just it’s counterintuitive. I already told those two we’re going to be they’ll have targets on their back. Take it easy on your coach. Appreciate this. Have a great summer. Love to keep in touch with you and obviously best of luck at the tournament. Thank you. Thanks for everything.

Brodie Brazil sits down with Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky to recap his first season as the Sharks head coach, looking ahead, and his upcoming role at Worlds with USA Hockey.