 |
| |
|
 |
 |
Jump to the Sharks Wilson's arrival to provide a jolt -- or at least an identityPosted: Wednesday December 04, 2002 6:20 PM
On Wednesday, the San Jose Sharks hired former Washington Capitals head coach Ron Wilson. CNNSI.com caught up with Sports Illustrated senior writer Kostya Kennedy, who praised the move as a step forward. CNNSI.com: What kind of team does Wilson inherit in San Jose? Is there a discernable team personality there? Kennedy: That's been the problem with the Sharks under Darryl Sutter. What kind of team are they, and how does Teemu Selanne fit in? You might want to say they are a grinding team, but while a guy like Owen Nolan plays a physical game, you don't necessarily want him grinding. Some guys need to be let loose. Patrick Marleau, when he's playing well, is like that, too. What's going to have to happen is that Wilson must develop the team's personality. If they get just good play out of Evgeni Nabokov, they're a decent playoff team. Wilson is going to go straight to the leaders of the club and in a few weeks, maybe not the first few games, we'll see the team's personality develop. What Wilson has done in the past is adapt to his players' strengths, and I think he'll do that in San Jose. He won't be shy about asking for input. CNNSI.com: Wilson was fired last May by the Capitals. What did he do in his five years in Washington that suggested he deserved another head coaching position so soon? Kennedy: He usually got a lot from the Capitals. Of course, he took them to the Cup finals in 1998 before falling to the Red Wings. But his Capitals teams were often hurt by a big road swing early in the season when Wizards owner Abe Pollin ran long events in the building the two teams shared. There were injuries, too. Generally, though, Wilson started to lose the team a bit toward the end of last season when he started to lose Adam Oates, but I put that blame more on Oates. And as we're finding now, it wasn't Wilson's fault that Jaromir Jagr was hard to deal with. It was time for a coaching change in Washington. But Wilson proved capable of guiding the Capitals and did nothing to diminish his standing within the league. CNNSI.com: Were the Sharks a team that had gone awry? In October, they were an en vogue Stanley Cup pick. Kennedy: I don't think anything's gone awry. They're definitely off to a slow start, but their season's not over. Wilson, even in his bad years, and especially in his good years, had teams that were fantastic in the second half. He points his teams toward the playoffs. I think what went awry was that Sutter always has been overrated as a coach. Going back to what we talked about earlier, the team didn't have a style you could depend upon or come to expect. If Wilson can give them that, the talent is there to make a nice push. People who picked them to win the Cup might have overrated them a bit, too. I think they're still a cut below the Avalanche and Red Wings. Against those two teams, a series would come down to goaltending. If they get in this season, I wouldn't be surprised to see them win a round, maybe two. But there's no point on giving up on this team. CNNSI.com: You mentioned Sutter possibly being overrated; does Sharks GM Dean Lombardi cover his tracks with this move? Kennedy: I think he overrated Sutter for a while, but I do give him credit for seeing that this team could be salvaged. There's a long way to go, and the Sharks will be heard from. CNNSI.com: Are there any players in San Jose you see flourishing under Wilson? Kennedy: We're going to see a team in which the stars -- Nolan, Selanne, Vincent Damphousse, if he can sell himself to Wilson -- get the playing time and systems they want. Wilson's generally a defensive-minded coach, which will be fine for the team. They have good forwards for that, but he doesn’t necessarily have the same attack from line to line. It depends on how the lines shake out. I'm just speculating, but maybe you see Nolan going to the net more often, maybe Scott Thornton ends up on a line with Selanne, which might help give him some more room. Wilson's going to look at his stars and get them in the best positions to succeed. He's not going to cater to the stars, but in terms of the way he uses his players, he'll look for different ways to maximize their creativity and abilities. And he's going to find himself a line -- maybe Niklas Sundstrom and Mike Ricci are on that line -- kind of like the Jeff Halpern line he had in Washington. That was a junkyard dog line, but those guys had some offensive ability. Then Wilson will use that line a lot in various situations. CNNSI.com: Because no team is running away in the Western Conference, does that boost the incentive to make a coaching change? Kennedy: It's funny, I was one of the people in the spring who thought St. Louis was going to break out. But I don't think that much has changed in the West. Minnesota has been a big surprise, but the West was open at the start of the season and it's open now. It's there for the taking, and San Jose is only five points out of a playoff spot. Sports Illustrated senior writer Kostya Kennedy covers the NHL beat for the
magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.
|
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||||
