Owner Plattner shows confidence in GM Wilson
SAN JOSE >> Sharks owner Hasso Plattner is again giving general manager Doug Wilson his backing, saying in a news release Thursday he is supportive of Wilson’s plan to return the struggling team back to the NHL playoffs next season.
The Sharks have fallen well short of expectations this year, as they sit in 13th place in the Western Conference and have next-tono chance of making the postseason. With a 21-25-4 record, the Sharks are 11 points out of a playoff spot with just 32 games to go.
“I am supportive of Doug’s plan to get our team back on track,” said Plattner, the Sharks’ majority owner since 2010.
Plattner also stood behind Wilson the last time the Sharks missed the playoffs in 2014-15. Then, following a busy 2015 offseason in which Wilson hired a new coach in Pete DeBoer, spent money in free agency and traded for goalie Martin Jones, the Sharks returned to the playoffs the following year and advanced to their first Stanley Cup Final in 2016.
Clearly, Plattner believes the team, under Wilson’s guidance, can enjoy a similar type of turnaround for next season, although the team may face greater challenges now than five years ago.
“While we are all very disappointed in the team’s performance thus far this season, Doug has a long history of leading our team to success,” Plattner said. “The last time we failed to meet our winning standards in the 2014-15 season, we were able to quickly rebound and re-establish a winning culture for the next several years.”
Wilson has been the Sharks’ general manager since May 2003, taking over the job two months after Dean Lombardi was fired. Since Wilson’s hire, the Sharks have made the playoffs in 14 of 15 seasons, reaching the conference finals
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five times but never winning the Stanley Cup.
This season after the Sharks started the year with a 15-16-2 record, Wilson fired DeBoer on Dec. 11 and named Bob Boughner interim coach.
It was hoped the change would spark the team back into the playoff picture. But the Sharks are 6-9-2 with Boughner, as they lost all three games of their road trip last week through Arizona, Colorado and Vancouver to all but seal their fate as a team that will miss the postseason.
It is believed that Boughner will coach the Sharks the rest of the regular season. The Sharks’ first game back after their bye week is Monday at home against the Anaheim Ducks.
Wilson and the Sharks are expected to be sellers before the NHL’s Feb. 24 trade deadline. Candidates to be traded include forward Melker Karlsson, goalie Aaron Dell and defenseman Brenden Dillon, who are all slated to become unrestricted free agents this summer.
Before the 2015 NHL trade deadline, the Sharks dealt three depth skaters but kept their core intact. It appears that will be the case again this year, as Erik Karlsson, Brent Burns,
Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Logan Couture and Evander Kane all have at least five years remaining on their respective contracts after this season.
The salary cap hit on the Sharks for those five players will be $41.5 million for the next five seasons, perhaps limiting the team’s flexibility in terms of how much talent they can add for next year. For the 202021 season, the NHL’s salary cap is not expected to rise much above its current upper limit of $81.5 million.
The Sharks also do not have their first round draft pick for this year, as Wilson traded it to the Ottawa Senators as part of the package that brought Erik Karlsson to San Jose. A pick in the overall top five this year may have netted a player that could help the Sharks as soon as next season.
The Sharks also announced that John Tortora, co-president of the Sharks Sports & Entertainment with Jonathan Becher since 2017, will be leaving the organization “to pursue other opportunities.” Becher will become sole president of the organization, effective immediately, and also serve as an alternate governor for the franchise with the NHL.
Before he became copresident of SSE, Tortora was the organization’s executive vice president and general counsel from 2011 to 2013 and its chief operating officer of the Sharks from 2013 to 2017.