State of the Sharks: Ice Insights with Warsofsky (12/20)

State of the Sharks: Ice Insights with Warsofsky (12/20)

Coach, it’s about six o’clock. You guys will go out there for warmup in just a little bit. From now to then, what do you normally do? And when you’re out there during warm-up, what do coaches do? They they talk behind paper all the time and they they share secrets. What do you actually get done during warm-up? >> Yeah, I mean, I’m not out there. I’ll have our assistant coaches go out there and get their lines. Um, really just just getting their lineup. That’s really what it comes down to is uh see who’s in, who’s out for them. you know, you see stuff on, you know, uh, through the media that, you know, what their their coaches are saying on what their lineup is, but until we see them out there, we’re not confirmed yet. So, and then we’ll start going through it and they come back, uh, our matchups for that night and, um, going through some things that we we need to do against certain players. Um, but a lot of it is through those assistant coaches is find the lineup. >> After you leave us here, what will you do? >> Uh, I’ll go in there and, you know, kind of just relax for for a few minutes and then, um, before you know it, it’s it’s go time. So, um, this is kind of a little bit of a quiet time, uh, after we finish our meetings. Um, our assistant coaches right now are are working on their pre-couts for, uh, Seattle. We’ll get started a little bit of a head start right now. We have games on, so we’re watching other NHL teams. Uh, I may start, you know, prep prepping for Seattle just a little bit. It’s hard for me to >> kind of move on to the next game when we haven’t started this game. So, a lot of it is focused on um, things we need to see tonight from our team. this season with the Olympics and the condensed schedule, we’re already going a million miles an hour, but especially during a season like this and you as a father and a husband, >> how do you even try to manage a a work life balance? >> Yeah, it’s it’s hard. Um when I first kind of got into the National Hockey League, talking to some coaches, that’s the one thing that they said is um you won’t see your family very often. Um, and it’s it’s tough, but uh my wife is is a rock star as far as you know, keeping everything at home uh you know, in order and u we have two little ones. So when it when it is a chance to get home and I’m at on we’re at home, uh it’s nice to kind of get away a little bit. Um and then what’s nice being on the West Coast at 4:00 there’s games on and my little guy wants to sit there and watch a game with me which is kind of beneficial. But um yeah, it’s a lot. It’s the schedule this year especially it’s every other day there. There’s not much time to to review. There’s not much time to really look forward. You just kind of try to stay where your feet are. >> The team has given us some great outcomes, some great like storyline type games this year. I think about the win in Toronto, the game here against the Mammoth. Uh Mack had the Hattie to to seal it off. The game in in Minnesota against the Wild, >> but that Pittsburgh game, my goodness. And it it felt a lot. I know you weren’t here in 2019, but to see a Shark player get hurt and two players get hurt, but especially there at the end and to almost see like the revenge start to take place and the boys to wake up and and make a dent and you’re like, well, if you’ve come this far and it’s 5-3, now it’s 55, you got to go out and win the game after that. >> How does that sit with you? Like you’ll never be able to forget that game. >> No, that will be a one we remember we remember forever for sure. And um it just had a real interesting feeling even after the second period like we you know I know this thing was 5-1 at the time we didn’t feel out of it. Uh for whatever reason we didn’t think we were playing as bad as a scoreboard looked um and we were getting some really good looks and uh we just kept saying we just got to get one here. Uh and obviously we with Smitty going down we kind of rallied around that. Mac jumps in there. Um, and a lot of times when that happens to a young team, you can kind of uh have, you know, real emotion of of let down uh when you lose one of your teammates and and we really rallied around it. And um it was obviously a special special game, a special comeback for sure. >> You recognize though the parallel from that game and I know a lot of fans here remember that 2019 round one game seven against. You you realize that like it’s almost identical. One’s a regular season, but it had that feel. >> Yeah, it did. >> Yeah. Brought us together I think even more and gave us more confidence. So, if something is special happening here this season, if something special is happening right now in front of our eyes, when will you know it? When’s the last game of the year? Um, probably at the end of it all. Uh, again, you got to really be stay focused and and dayto-day and be really uh like I said, be where our feet are. Um, we’ll let the outside and you guys can get excited and um and I and I appreciate that and I think that’s important. Um, but I think the second you get comfortable, uh, is where things can slip. So, uh, we tell our players, we got to be, you know, getting comfortable being uncomfortable and and we got to keep pushing that envelope and stay where our feet are. Uh, we have a really good team here in Dallas tonight. Uh, this is an important game for us, um, to continue to grow our team, but, uh, we’re going to stay, you know, right where our feet are. We’ve done some really good things this year. We have seen some guys blossom. Uh, we’ve come together as a group, but there’s still a long way to go. I thought it was also cool on the road trip you had to bring in an ebug. Now, I know that probably wasn’t your favorite thing to do and ask was under the weather, but Justin Kolkowski is it what a geologist? You guys all heard that story, right? Um, >> so how how do you and your staff and the players, how do you make that experience special for him and at the same time hope that he never sees one puck during a game? You know what? It’s like Ned, you were in there no matter what. >> Yeah. I mean, we just made him feel at home and everyone went in there and he came in and we welcomed him. He gave him his jersey to take home and his family was coming to the game, get two young kids. So, uh, I think it was a moment he’ll never forget. We wish we could have kind of won a game there and and maybe gave him the the shark mouth. But, you know, he he he was a, you know, a real trooper of of doing that. And I know, you know, something that he’ll remember for sure. >> And it is changing next year, right, with the the new CBA so that each team is going to have a permanent emergency backup goal and that person travels. So, there won’t be that random, oh, hey, you’re joining us tonight. kind of an end of a cool era, but I’m I’m glad hopefully that’s the last one of the year. >> Yeah. >> Was that a weird phone call to make? You got to make the call at one point, right? >> Yeah. We had, you know, obviously Mike was on the road trip, so Mike and I had an idea that this was kind of probably going to go down that path and, um, you know, with Asky being a little bit under the weather. So, um, >> it is what it is. You just roll with the punches. You know, I feel like watching the Sharks this season and when there are mistakes that happen and defensive coverage into play, whatever. The Sharks of yesterday yester year, you look at it and say, “Well, this team is rough and maybe they’re not getting better.” I do feel like that mistakes here in 2025-6, they’re almost a a good thing to happen. I say that because it’s a learning experience and the young players, if there is a situation that they get to gain from and learn from that, they’ll be better for it next time around. How do you see that? >> Especially when you’re in tight games, right? And uh it’s usually a play here or there that you know ends up costing you the game. That’s pretty much in every sport. So um it’s good to go through these experiences when you know it’s 3-2 or up you know with 6 minutes left. And how to play in that situation is critical uh for us to win long term and have success uh for many years to come. And uh whether that’s 42 3-2 last game it was 5-2 we give up a goal probably last year we even heels on our Moore and next thing you know it’s 5-4. Um, so you know, those are the moments that as a coach that I’m looking at is are we learning through those experiences? Um, is it perfect right now? No. But I think we’ve made some strides.

Brodie Brazil and Sharks Head Coach Ryan Warsofsky talk all things Sharks hockey during Ice Insights, an exclusive pregame Sharks365 member event.