Is Doug Wilson in over his head?

[Irie]

The Sharks had 111 points last season, good for fourth best in the league, and I think it is worth mentioning that none of the teams better than them made it to the finals. They have the deepest forward core in their history. Only two teams scored more goals. And Doug Wilson has stated that this team can not win in the playoffs, citing their veterans as the problem? Several writers have commented that Wilson may be in over his head. Are they right in suggesting the possibility?

The Kings were a brutal draw in the first round. They obviously were the best team, as they won their second cup in three years, but the Sharks were really close to knocking them out and moving on. I would even argue that if the two teams had swapped goalies for the series, the kings would have been golfing in the second round.

This team's window has not closed, the truth is, at least on paper, it never opened. This team is a consistent starting goalie (Stalock may the the answer), one strong second pairing defenseman, and one consistent third pairing guy to solidify the D away from being a legitimate cup threat on paper.

But Doug Wilson has thrown a very good Sharks team into complete turmoil with his frustrated public comments. I understand that losing the way the Sharks lost has to hurt, and he is probably very worried about his job, but now he has his team thinking that they aren't good enough to win. He has the entire league believing that The Sharks dressing room is a complete mess, that the team is in a massive, discombobulated tailspin. His statements all but destroyed any chance of San Jose landing some of the help that might have got them over the hump in free agency. And probably worst of all, he has cast a strong shadow of doubt in their confidence and team chemistry that has been such a huge part of the winning ways San Jose has experienced for so long. This is the worst part of his actions. In the NHL, your young guys learn to win through the culture of the team. A winning culture breeds winners. A losing culture sets a very bad precedence for your young players, just look at Edmonton. If your entire team believes your team is going to win every night you step on that ice, more often than not, you're going to win. The reverse holds true with losing. I can't imagine the Sharks are feeling much like winners after Wilson's public lambasting.

This team has been pretty good for a long time. But even on paper, they have always been underdogs. In the past several seasons, Chicago's been deeper and more dynamic on paper, The Vancouver team that went to the finals was too. As were the ducks. So were the kings. But San Jose was not that far off. But instead of addressing a few glaring weak spots, Doug Wilson's big moves to put them over the top have been to completely overpay Burish. To sign an aging Stuart who was a defensive hot-mess his previous couple of seasons in Detroit, and to give up a second round pick for Kennedy, who while a fast skater, had virtually no other tools in his toolbox, and was being chased out of town by most Penguin fans.

This year, Getting the kings in the first round was bad, but doing nothing at the trade deadline, was the killer. This team was good, it had shown signs of brilliance. But Niemi was ridiculously inconsistent all season long. And after Boyles concussion, it was obvious that he and Stuart were struggling defensively at even strength. Now this may strictly be Mclellan's doing, but over-working your starting goalie when he is playing poorly instead of your young backup who is having a brilliant season, and then running with him in the post season may not be the best idea. What do you mean having a tired inconsistent goalie isn't better than having just an inconsistent goalie? And lastly, going into a long playoff season with a couple of questionable top four defensemen, and almost zero depth at the position is not really a recipe for success.

The Sharks have been bounced by a lot of great teams in the playoffs over the years, and other than the first round loss to a heavily underdog Stars team a few years back, I can't think of another time where I was legitimately surprised that they lost, and I am not a pessimist. And after each loss, it seems like Wilson looks for one character flaw in the team, and tries to revamp based on one characteristic. Usually it goes like this. Team got pushed around too much, get rid of the fast, soft guys, bring in slow tough guys. Team gets out skated - get rid of the slow, tough guys, bring in fast energy guys. Team gets pushed around - get rid of soft, fast guys, bring in tough fast guys that have no offensive game..... and so on.

The bottom line is, this team is still very good. They are a consistent goalie and a solidifying presence on the second D pairing away from being a legitimate contender. But Doug Wilson seems to be set on tearing it down and starting over, which is a shame, because there is zero chance they will get the players they need to replace their vets any time soon through the draft.

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[Leidi J]

agreed with most of your post... but not the title of this thread.

In over his head is not the way I'd put it.

Overreacting for sure... or just plain out of touch. There's lots of things I think about DW right now, none of them positive.

 

[hohosaregood]

I'm gonna wait to see what the make up of the team looks like going into the season before I make a final verdict. There's a lot of things happening behind closed doors right now and DW's got a history of spewing weird double speaky words to the hockey world.

He's cut a lot of deadweight already, so that's good. There are the weird signings though. The reality is that Scott and Brown are meaningless signings in terms of impact, cap, and even roster spots right now. There isn't a legitimate downside at this specific moment to their signings but there is also very little legitimate gain out of it. I say this without any expectations to what may or may not be on the roster going into next season.There's also the matter of signing actual impact players, which is bad so far but we know he doesn't really go all that hard for players and it does make it kinda worse that some of the UFAs got nice values but it wasn't a great FA class in general.

There's a lot of things that could happen and a lot of things that really might not end up happening and everybody's going crazy about it. There's also a lot of bickering about the semantics of DW doublespeak.

 

[TealManV]

Very well thought out and written post.

Personally, I'm going to hold off on my judgement of this offseason until we get to training camp. I would like to see what other signings, resignings and trades DW makes before commenting on his decisions this summer. At this point I'd say there's been more overreacting by the posters on this board (myself included) than by DW.

 

[Kcoyote3]

I actually think it was a pretty good free agent class and some people got good deals. Orpik is too much but others are not. There were LD out there that could have helped the Sharks. I honestly believe we didn't try to go for them and that worries me.

 

[Gene Parmesan]

Very well thought out and written post.

Personally, I'm going to hold off on my judgement of this offseason until we get to training camp. I would like to see what other signings, resignings and trades DW makes before commenting on his decisions this summer. At this point I'd say there's been more overreacting by the posters on this board (myself included) than by DW.

This. I don't think he's overreacting at all. The Sharks have been a successful team but you can't blow a 3-0 series lead and expect "oh well, we'll get them next year!" I think some expected the roster to be blown to bits already but that's not how he's doing it.

 

[SC2008]

Nope DW is fine. Only dumb thing was his public comments--which put him in a no-win situation. Either he blows up a team that doesn't need blowing up, or he narrows his focus on rebuilding the blueline and get called out for "lip service"

Glad he's doing the latter. Forwards and Goalie performance drops if the blueline is weak--losing Vlasic proved this theory.

There were no good defense FA's worth what they got. Hell, the Duck's 2014 GM of the Year Murray is paying Clayton Stoner for 3.25 for 4 years! A 3rd pairing D-man.

FA market was terrible in general--worse since the Gomez/Drury year.

I'd be game to trade for a top tier D-man like how we acquired Boyle and Burns. Rather be on the hook for 6 or 7 mil for a top pairing elite than 3-5 for a dime a dozen bottom 2 pair.

 

[HydroF]

I really don't see anything to worry about with DW at this time. His public comments should not have been made, that was very frustrating, but other than that no real complaints yet.

Sharks had a stacked offense last season, and the only player we have lost from that offense so far is Havlat, who hardly played anyway.

On defense, Sharks have only lost Boyle and Stuart. Two guys most of this board were wanting gone anyways.

So he moves Burns back to defense, which replaces one of the lost guys, and is an improvement over either of them imo, and the only differences we have from last season is an empty forward slot and an empty D slot. If we wants to give rookies a shot, we have that, or if he wants to get something through trade or FA, theres that route too. McGinn is not a bad young player to give a shot to and see how he can develop if DW isn't comfortable with the ability of any of the current forward prospects.

The Sharks had a couple weak areas last season, and now they potentially have a couple holes (unless DW wants to put rookies there), but its still very early in the offseason. Those things may still be addressed. Right now, if the only differences we are going to see is Burns taking Boyles spot, then McGinn taking Burns spot, and Mueller (or another D prospect) taking Stuarts spot, I think we are going to see pretty much the same results as last season. Disappointing perhaps, but we are still definitely making the playoffs with this roster.

Still very very early in the off season

 

[Hold the Pickles]

Good post. I'd add the Ducks. Though the Ducks were a match-up problem we still should have beat them.

You're right, the trade deadline killed us. if the kings didn't get gaborik or we would have added a solid d-man things would have been different. You have to expect injuries in the PO's and Pickles going down didn't have to be the difference maker.

 

[DG93]

I think Wilson realized that the road to the SC finals goes through Los Angeles for these next 3-5 years (at least...), so he decided if they can't beat them, might as well "rebuild." I don't see all the other teams (Ducks, Blackhawks, etc.) re-building, and the Sharks came closer to beating LA than they did, so I think DW is just frustrated, but I also don't think he's gonna make any major changes in the end to this team, all that was just BS.

 

[ChompChomp]

The Sharks have been bounced by a lot of great teams in the playoffs over the years, and other than the first round loss to a heavily underdog Stars team a few years back, I can't think of another time where I was legitimately surprised that they lost, and I am not a pessimist.

I agree with most of your post, but that Stars loss was a second round loss, not first. I didn't find it surprising after the first round that season, where they barely got past the Flames.

 

[Timo Time]

Great post OP.

I agree with just about all of it but I think if we were to look at what went wrong last season, I'd say the trade deadline. DW forgot to address a glaring need (a top-4 dman) but at the same token, you have to give to get an asset like that and he wasn't going to part with futures (picks, prospects).

When it came to the series against the Kings and after going up 3-0 in the fashion that they did, it seemed unlikely for them to dominate games the way they did and it caught up to them. Did that cause a losing culture? I don't think so because I think from management all the way down to the players they all had the belief that they would be contenders year in and year out. But now their mentality is just being the best team they can be. Take that for what it's worth but I still believe it's a winning culture here and while DW makes questionable moves, I would hardly call it an over reaction or in over his head, especially this offseason.

Sure he signed cheap bottom 6 forwards but at least he's not turning over a leaf that doesn't need to be turned by trading the young core which I think he holds on to very well.

 

[BCShark]

op acting like this is our first choke job

 

[Pinkfloyd]

op acting like this is our first choke job

Do you even know what choking is?

 

[Irie]

op acting like this is our first choke job

Blowing a 3-0 series lead is tough, but the Sharks were not favored to win that series. Goaltending was sub .900, and had been most games down the stretch. Not certain how anyone expected to win with that kind of goaltending. Meanwhile, the Kings were the hottest teams in the league the last month of the season, they only cooled off a bit after they guaranteed the 5th seed and had nothing to win the last two weeks of the season. Every game, the Sharks gave up a couple of soft goals, and the team lost it's confidence knowing that their goalie was not playing well.

The first three games, if you go back and watch them, The sharks were skating hard, but they had a lot of lucky goals. Quick wasn't able to keep out several redirects and deflections, and the Kings were sluggish. Seems that their two weeks of lollygagging down the stretch had them unprepared for the increase in intensity that is the playoffs. But once they had their backs against the wall in the elimination game, they brought their A-game.

As for the D, we all knew the defense was suspect, and there wasn't a harder player to replace than Vlasic. Once he went down, the series was realistically over.

 

[boylerroom]

Good points but look how fast Vancouver fell from being cup favorite to absolute balls.

Just cause they were decent this year doesn't mean they'd stay there. I'd rather have a GM that over-reacts a little than waits FAR too long to react. See Calgary Flames.

 

[Irie]

I agree with most of your post, but that Stars loss was a second round loss, not first. I didn't find it surprising after the first round that season, where they barely got past the Flames.

You're correct, I've tried very hard to forget that series and season completely

Although not stated in my original post, I felt that the Sharks should have beaten The Oilers after the lockout. But goaltending let them down in that series as well. After they lost that heartbreaking triple OT game which would have given them a 3-0 series lead, their goaltending was nothing but soft goals at the worst time. That is incredibly deflating. Not to take anything away from that Oil team (or Torres!) which were playing a great team game in every zone. Did they choke in that series? maybe. Mostly i have felt that over the years, they have had inconsistent goaltending that always seems to find a way to give up the soft goals at the worst times. And not since Irbe (who was the poster child of inconsistent goalies) have they had a goalie who literally stole them games in the playoffs.

And I am not saying this team needs a goalie who regularly steals them playoff wins. But they do need a goalie who doesn't regularly lose them games. Honestly, since even a couple of years before the lockout, can you remember a series that they lost despite having great goaltending? Or even an elimination series where their goaltender outplayed their opponents goaltender?

 

[Barrie22]

Good points but look how fast Vancouver fell from being cup favorite to absolute balls.

Just cause they were decent this year doesn't mean they'd stay there. I'd rather have a GM that over-reacts a little than waits FAR too long to react. See Calgary Flames.

The canucks and sharks are just a little different in there make ups.

The canucks have the sedins and then nobody after that. And they both have fallen off the cliff.

The sharks still have there 2 best players being 2 great players. And then after that the sharks have couture/pavs/vlasic/hertl. Hell even nieto is better then anything the canucks have after the sedins.

The sharks even if thornton and marleau fall off the cliff still have enough talent to remain competive (not necessarily make the playoffs every year) but enough to stay in the hunt every year.

 

[Barrie22]

You're correct, I've tried very hard to forget that series and season completely

Although not stated in my original post, I felt that the Sharks should have beaten The Oilers after the lockout. But goaltending let them down in that series as well. After they lost that heartbreaking triple OT game which would have given them a 3-0 series lead, their goaltending was nothing but soft goals at the worst time. That is incredibly deflating. Not to take anything away from that Oil team (or Torres!) which were playing a great team game in every zone. Did they choke in that series? maybe. Mostly i have felt that over the years, they have had inconsistent goaltending that always seems to find a way to give up the soft goals at the worst times. And not since Irbe (who was the poster child of inconsistent goalies) have they had a goalie who literally stole them games in the playoffs.

And I am not saying this team needs a goalie who regularly steals them playoff wins. But they do need a goalie who doesn't regularly lose them games. Honestly, since even a couple of years before the lockout, can you remember a series that they lost despite having great goaltending? Or even an elimination series where their goaltender outplayed their opponents goaltender?

Kings series #2 the goaltending was great.

 

[FeedingFrenzy]

DW didn't choke away a 3-0 series lead. Players HAD to be held responsible. I for one have had no real issue with what has played out since the loss to LA. I am/was an advocate for moving JT still.

-DW called out players without naming names(hi Marty), has been trimming the fat(boyle,stuart,havlat)

-By talking to the media the way DW has, he sets himself up to move JT & Patty(hopefully Burish too)( I am not advocating trading Marleau FTR) down the road should things go awry and nobody will be blind-sided by a trade or rioting in the streets.

-I am 50/50 on the re-signing of Brown and the John Scott signing. I like what Brown brings, but I guess the question is do you play a rookie in 4th line minutes or sign Brown. As for JS, I like the high risk, high reward. He serves some purpose.

-DW gets a 2nd and a 6th for Stuart, gets a pick for Boyle. Most said we'd get squat inreturn. Good job from my POV. Niemi should be next.

- There is no rush this summer. Change is coming. Getting Wingels inked and hopefully Demers and Shepp is first priority. Getting Braun signed to a new deal should be a must also.


I am excited about the unknown. I just know we have more than enough talent to get back to the PO's and keep trying.

 

[Mafoofoo]

Good points but look how fast Vancouver fell from being cup favorite to absolute balls.

Just cause they were decent this year doesn't mean they'd stay there. I'd rather have a GM that over-reacts a little than waits FAR too long to react. See Calgary Flames.

Their GM also let guys like Ehrhoff and Torres go, traded Hodgeson for Kassian and somehow got rid of two #1 goalies.

Gillis destroyed that team due to an overreaction and now they're slowly coming recovering.

 

[Alwalys]

I am almost 100% on board with this post and it's the post every Sharks -- nay, hockey -- fan with a clue should be making at this point. To those saying nothing has really been done yet, that's not true at all.

DW's public statements have been made, and the signings he has made to this point have shown the direction -- or lack thereof -- the team is traveling in. DW also opted out of the FA market which is required for us to ever truly compete for the Cup. All of this means that the best we can get is an impact trade, which will mean we stand to lose roster assets.

This. I don't think he's overreacting at all. The Sharks have been a successful team but you can't blow a 3-0 series lead and expect "oh well, we'll get them next year!" I think some expected the roster to be blown to bits already but that's not how he's doing it.

The actual evidence we have available to us says the exact opposite. Teams that blow 3-0 series leads have won it all the next season at a greater rate than the Presidents' trophy team has won it all. So you might say that we actually can expect to get them next year, simply by the fact of having lost a series 3-0.

That may seem counterintuitive, but it's an argument against allowing intangible ideas to cause an overreaction. The intangible idea of being more driven than ever following a 3-0 series loss is not only as valid as any other intangible idea, it actually has empirical support.

Good points but look how fast Vancouver fell from being cup favorite to absolute balls.

Just cause they were decent this year doesn't mean they'd stay there. I'd rather have a GM that over-reacts a little than waits FAR too long to react. See Calgary Flames.

Uh, you do realize that the reason Vancouver is balls now is BECAUSE of GM mismanagement following the Finals year? They are the *example* of why we should not being doing what DW is doing.

DW didn't choke away a 3-0 series lead. Players HAD to be held responsible.

Does losing Vlasic, arguably our most important player, factor into that analysis? Is it the players' fault the depth behind him was so thin and the system could not compensate for his loss?

 

[Le Rosbeef]

The bottom line is, this team is still very good. They are a consistent goalie and a solidifying presence on the second D pairing away from being a legitimate contender. But Doug Wilson seems to be set on tearing it down and starting over, which is a shame, because there is zero chance they will get the players they need to replace their vets any time soon through the draft.

A good all round post with lots of valid points but the one that's missing is the key one. He (and presumably ownership) don't believe they can win it with Marleau and Thornton leading the team. Evidence tends to support that view.

Presumably he figures "close" ain't close enough...

 

[Alwalys]

A good all round post with lots of valid points but the one that's missing is the key one. He (and presumably ownership) don't believe they can win it with Marleau and Thornton leading the team. Evidence tends to support that view.

The point of this post is that they are wrong and evidence does not support that view.

 

[Barrie22]

There is 10 years worth of proof wilson doesn't know how to win either.

And yes i would put more blame on him for the past failures. Every year fans on here can look at the team he built and see huge glaring holes in the team that is missing that will stop the team from going far in the playoffs. And every year thise same holes come and show there faces in the playoffs.