Sharks fire head coach David Quinn after two seasons

“After going through our end of the season process of internal meetings,” General manager Mike Grier said in a release. “Evaluating where our team is at and where we want our group to go, we have made the difficult decision to make a change at the head coach position. David is a good coach and an even better person. I would like to personally thank him for his hard work over these past two seasons. He and his staff did an admirable job under some difficult circumstances, and I sincerely appreciate how they handled the situation.”

Grier hired Quinn on July 26, 2022, one of the former NHLers’ first moves in the role since being hired by the Sharks less than three weeks before. In both of Quinn’s seasons, San Jose missed the playoffs–by a lot.

The Sharks are coming off one of the worst seasons in franchise history. The team ended the 2023-24 campaign with a 19-54-9 record, with 47 points, placing them at the bottom of the NHL. It was their lowest total in an 82-game season in almost three decades, and it was just the fourth time—in a full season—that San Jose failed to reach 50 points as a team.

In two years at the helm, Quinn’s teams went 41-98-27, finishing no better than seventh in the Pacific Division. It is hard to say that the Sharks had much of a chance to even compete for a playoff spot, given the quality of talent on the roster and the fact that they started the season by going winless in their first 11 games.

This past season marked Quinn’s fifth season as a head coach in the NHL. He was the bench boss for the New York Rangers from 2018 to 2021, during which the Blueshirts made it as far as the Qualifying Round during the bubble playoffs in 2020. The Cranston, Rhode Island native has a career coaching record of 137-185-50.

Quinn’s first taste of coaching in the league came during the 2012-13 season when he was the assistant coach to Joe Sacco with the Colorado Avalanche.

The 57-year-old’s coaching pedigree includes being the head coach for Team USA at the 2022 and 2023 IIHF World Championships and the 2022 Beijing Olympics. He was also the assistant coach for the American teams that took home silver at the World Championships in 1999 and 2000.

Quinn was also the head coach at his alma mater, Boston University, where he led the Terriers to three Hockey East Championships and the 2015 NCAA National Championship Game.