The San Jose Sharks have interviewed a long list of candidates for their vacant head coaching position, including assistant coach Ryan Warsofsky who, per Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now, is now pulling ahead as the favorite for the job. He pulls ahead of a list of interviewees that features Jay Woodcroft, Matt Nieto, Jeff Blashill, Jeff Halpern, and Jeremy Colliton. Warsofsky also interviewed for San Jose’s head coach role in 2022, though he was ultimately hired behind David Quinn.
Warsofsky oversaw San Jose’s defense and penalty kill while serving behind Quinn, serving as the coach behind Erik Karlsson’s 101-point, Norris Trophy-winning season last year. But he was also the coach behind San Jose’s 326 goals allowed this season – the third-most of any team over the last decade.
Warsofsky is just two years into his NHL coaching career – experiencing two of the staunchest extremes he could have – after leading the Chicago Wolves to the 2022 AHL Calder Cup Championship to cap off his three-year tenure as an AHL head coach. Warsofsky’s hire would follow a growing trend of teams finding their coaches internally, with each of Winnipeg, St. Louis, Seattle, and Los Angeles already promoting coaches to the NHL head coach role this off-season. The role in San Jose would be the first NHL head coaching role of Warsofsky’s still very young career.
Other notes from around the league:
- Long-time Dallas Stars forward Alexander Radulov has signed a one-year contract with the KHL’s Lokomotiv (Twitter link). Radulov has spent the last two seasons with Kazan Ak-Bars, posting a combined 41 goals and 97 points across 120 games. He’s remained productive, even at the age of 37, and will now be set to play with the fourth KHL club of his career – after four seasons with Ufa, four with CSKA Moscow, and two with Kazan. Those seasons add to Radulov’s nine-year career in the NHL, where he totaled 368 points in 524 career games spent with three different clubs. With no signs of slowing down, Radulov will look to vindicate this one-year contract with a strong season and continue his trek to becoming just the 19th KHL player to play beyond 40 years old.
- NHL Utah is down to six finalists for its permanent name after an initial vote yielded over 500,000 responses. They’ll be called the Utah Blizzards, Utah Hockey Club, Utah Mammoth, Utah Outlaws, Utah Venom or Utah Yeti beginning with the 2025-26 season. They’ll carry temporary Utah Hockey Club branding for their inaugural 2024-25 campaign. Fans can choose between the six finalists using this link.
What, was there a copyright issue with Utah LEGOs?!
Hockey Club may be the best out of those 6 names, lol!
Utah Yutes
Submitted by my cousin Vinny
Venom is an arena football name. So is Outlaws. Yeti is an obvious attempt to cannibalize the success of the Kraken. Blizzard doesn’t make sense when the Av’s exist. And Mammoth is, I guess, a bit better. But Black Diamonds seriously wasn’t one of the finalists? It’s a little janky, but that one seems kinda creative.
I thought Caribou could have been cool. This list is underwhelming.
Black Diamonds was the only name I’ve heard for Utah that was not 1000% terrible. It was halfway decent in comparison.
It will be Yeti, even though it’s awful.
At least with Blizzard they could have a built in sponsorship with Dairy Queen! “Win by two, get a freebie at DQ”! :D
@DarkSide830 — Mammoth is also a lacrosse team name. Of the non-official candidates, I like both Black Diamonds and Caribou. Yeti is used most in the Himalayas, not in North America as some want to believe. Here you have either Bigfoot or Sasquatch, but the latter is too close to Wasatch, a mountain range in the state. And, the Avs use a Bigfoot foot on their sweaters, so that’s out.
Marketing company they hired did not like it.
Why not be the Utah Branding and just have a giant branding iron for a logo?
Utah names are just bad
This was going to be a joke but…compared to names they have picked, why not…
The Utah Smiths
Have a hammer and a hockey stick crossing in a forge for the main logo.
And then a weird cult leader as the shoulder logo.
Like the cough drop guys?
I originally suggested Yeti when naming was put up around the interwebs. Somehow Yeti’s became a popular suggestion. Now it’s apparently dropped back down to Yeti. I do like it and how it rolls off the tongue and it has some roots in pacific northwest lore. Tho there it is more commonly recognized as an Abominal Snowman or something of the sort. But they’re tied back to the lore of sasquatch/big foot.
Whatever they choose, I don’t think it will last. I don’t expect the club to be there long term, and if they do, it will experience a lot of changes.
If they are taking the year, take the year. These are all gimmicky.
Honestly, it’s all pretty bush league. It does not take some vast marketing campaign and lead time to come up with a sports team name, a logo, colors and uniforms. I bet there were five dozen happy fans who had the whole kit and kaboodle run up by nightfall the day of the announcement.
What, they Have! To! Get! It! Right? BS.