The San Jose Sharks fired head coach David Quinn a week after their regular season finished. What they expected from him given the roster they have is unclear, but it is clear they wanted to go in a different direction with their bench boss and they have made their choice in former Charlotte Checkers (AHL) coach, and former Sharks assistant coach, Ryan Warsofsky:

Warsofsky was part of the coaching staff that led the Checkers to a pair of AHL championships. Let's break down what it means.

The notable thing about this hiring is that Warsofsky was a coach for an AHL team that graduated a lot of AHL players to the NHL as regulars. He was an assistant with Charlotte in 2019 when the team won the Calder Cup but was the head coach for 2019-20. That team had names like Anton Forsberg, Morgan Geekie, Steven Lorentz, Eetu Luostarainen, and Gustav Forsling. They are now all NHL regulars and Forsling is on the top pair for a team that is two wins away from a Stanley Cup.

When Charlotte became affiliated with the Florida Panthers for 2021, Warsofsky moved to the Chicago Wolves. That 2021-22 team won the AHL title and had Stefan Noesen, Jack Drury, Jalen Chatfield, and Pyotr Kochetkov. All were regulars for Carolina in the 2023-24 campaign.

This tells us that whether it was organizational, the coach, or most likely a mix of both, Warsofsky knows how to get players to the next level and that's exactly what San Jose needs right now. They have Will Smith and William Eklund, they have a few other nice prospects, and Macklin Celebrini is on his way in short order. This isn't a team that needs to get the most it can right now from its future, it is a team that needs to ensure their top young players are elite NHLers in four or five years and that the depth options can be valuable contributors to the lineup. Warsofsky has shown that ability. Also, at the age of 36, he's closer to the younger generation in age and should be able to connect with them as a coach.

If we can glean anything from coming up in the Carolina coaching system, it's that the Sharks – or at least their top guys – should be able to create territorial advantages, the defence should be very active in the offence, and the penalty kill should be very aggressive. Those are all things that will take years, not a summer, to develop and instill into the roster, but it's a good thing for the younger players.

The Sharks are still years away from being anything close to a contender, so there shouldn't be much pressure in the next couple of seasons for the new coach. He just needs to start developing players to their maximum potential and let the wins fall where they may. We will have to way to see how the players are deployed – Carolina is notorious for not giving its top players ample amounts of ice time – so that is a concern in the fantasy game, but until we see that play out in real life, this seems like a step in the right direction for the franchise, the players, and fantasy owners.