It’s been a whirlwind of a summer: preparations for the complete rebuild of his beach house, 22 — going on 23 — rounds of golf, and a second chance at coaching in the NHL after a year away, a year that almost saw him go stir crazy after he was fired by the New York Rangers on May 12, 2021, after three seasons as a coach. It might have happened had he not been handed the reins to the US men’s national team for the 2022 Beijing Olympics and 2022 IIHF World Championship.
“It was very odd,” Quinn said. “You can’t prepare for it. You know when you get to this level you’re going to get fired eventually. You’ve got to stay mentally strong and stay involved. You’re always asking your team to be mentally tough and your players to be mentally tough and I think that tests a coach when you get fired for the first time in your life.”
Now, though, he’s back.
The 56-year-old sits down at the oceanside table, the breeze ruffling hair that seems to have added a bit more salt. He grew up in the more urban Cranston, adjacent to Providence, but Quinn started proselytizing about the joys of Westerly, its location on the Amtrak line, its accessibility and relative inexpensiveness, at least compared to Cape Cod. He is convincing.
But, already, those are thoughts for next summer. For when Quinn will be returning — he hopes — after a successful reentry into the world of NHL coaching.
“Right now, you’re thinking about training camp, you’re thinking about staff meetings, you’re thinking about the challenges ahead,” Quinn said. “Just like I have for 30 years, other than one, last year.”
At that moment, in early September, Quinn had spent only four days in San Jose, heading out for his introductory press conference, touring some rentals at Santana Row.
And he won’t get much time in the Bay Area to start the season, with a training camp truncated by the Sharks’ participation in the 2022 NHL Global Series, playing an exhibition in Berlin and two regular-season games against the Nashville Predators. Prague on Oct. 7 and 8. From there, the Sharks get a week at home before heading back out on the road to the East Coast for four games, including a return to Madison Square Garden for a game against the Rangers on Oct. 20.
It should provide quite a bit of bonding time for the Sharks and their new coach.
“We’ll either love each other or hate each other,” Quinn said.
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When Mike Grier called, it all seemed to come together. Grier had always respected Quinn, the job he had done as a coach at Boston University, the way he had handled players like Jack Eichel and Charlie McAvoy and Clayton Kellerincluding the way he held them accountable.
“It didn’t matter if you were a star player or not, he was going to do what was best for the group,” said Grier, a former NHL forward who was hired as San Jose general manager July 5. “That was something that stuck with me, that I admired.”
So when Grier started talking to the Sharks, he posed a question to Quinn: If I get this job, would you be interested in coming with me?
Quinn said he would, absolutely.
When it was locked in after the formal interview process and Quinn was hired on July 26, the new coach went to work. He needed a staff, hiring stalwart Scott Gordon, who coached the New York Islanders for three seasons (2008-11) and the Philadelphia Flyers in 2018-19, and up-and-comer Ryan Warsofsky, who won a Calder Cup championship last season. as coach of Chicago of the American Hockey League.
He set out on a tour of eastern Canada, visiting Sharks players Logan Couture in Toronto and Erik Karlsson in Ottawa and Marc-Edouard Vlasic in Montreal. He understands that the past three seasons, when San Jose has missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs after making it in 14 of the previous 15 seasons, were unacceptable.
“It’s been fast and furious,” Quinn said. “But I think we’re in a great spot.”
He’s not alone.
“So far we have had I think good talks,” forward Thomas Hertl said. “Especially with us, it’s a lot of changes, new coach, new GM, a lot of people around even in the office are changed. It seems like I was never here because there’s so many changes.
“But I’m looking forward to it. I think we’ve had good talks, like I already know what he wants to play and do and hopefully everything will be working.”
Which is not to say that Quinn won’t have his challenges. He will, many of them. He will head into this season without a defenseman Brent Burnswho had been an integral part of the Sharks for the past 11 seasons before he was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes on July 13. That puts a spotlight on Karlsson, easily the team’s most important player, who is finally healthy after the defenseman missed 79 games in his first four seasons in San Jose.
It’s a Sharks team that needs to make strides offensively after finishing 30th in the NHL with an average of 2.57 goals per game last season. The power play was 22nd at 19 percent. San Jose’s goaltending is a question James Reimer and Kaapo Kahkonen competing for the No. 1 job.
Quinn needs them all to be better to get the Sharks anywhere near the playoffs. He said he needs 3 percent more, up and down the lineup.
It’s a tall ask.
“Yes,” he said. “It is a tall ask. That’s why coaching’s hard.”
He laughs.
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It’s the third season in New York that Quinn looks back on with some regret. He had felt good coming out of the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season, with the Rangers making the Stanley Cup Qualifiers in the midst of their rebuild, although they were swept by the Hurricanes in three games.
But the third season didn’t go as planned. New York finished fifth in its eight-team division and missed the playoffs. Quinn was let go.
“There were things I wish I had done differently,” he said. “I thought I got away from being who I have been for 28 years as a coach.”
Quinn had already been reevaluating, pondering how he would alter his approach, the changes he would institute in his fourth season, when the Rangers made their decision.
“You need to trust your team,” he says now. “You’ve got to trust your players.”
Video: David Quinn on becoming the Sharks head coach
He figures he wanted to do so well and so much that he overdid it. He overcoached. It was not something he had ever done before, in his estimation.
“I’ve got moments that I’m proud of and moments that I regret,” he said. “You wish you had some do-overs, that’s for sure.”
There’s one situation in particular that gnaws at him.
“Probably my biggest regret in coaching is this one guy,” Quinn said.
He won’t say much more, given that the player remains in the NHL. But it’s easy to see that it still bothers him, has impacted the way he intends on coaching and interacting with the Sharks in the future.
“Listen, I’ve trusted my gut and it’s gotten me this far,” he said. “I’ve got to keep trusting my gut. That’s what I’ve learned more than anything. You asked me what I’ve learned: That’s the No. 1 thing I’ve learned. My instincts.”
Grier sees the same.
“I think he learned a lot,” he said. “I think he learned a lot about managing players. How to hold players accountable, things like that. Being in New York, it’s not an easy place to coach. There’s a lot of criticism and heat that you have to take when things don’t.” t went well. I think that helped him grow.”
Which brings him to now. He felt he got back to himself coaching the Olympic team, which finished fifth in Beijing, and the World Championship team, which finished fourth. He felt great, a reaffirmation, and at the same time, a face-palm moment of wondering why he hadn’t just coached this way in New York that third season.
“This hasn’t been a lifelong problem,” Quinn said. “That’s not what I do. I don’t overcoach. I don’t know whether the circumstances played a role in it or what. I could just feel it. I knew the situation, I thought we could make a playoff run here.
“I don’t have to do things I’ve never done before.”
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The past few years have proven seismic in Quinn’s life. He left the college ranks for the Rangers in 2018 after five seasons at the helm of BU. He got married two years ago, for the first time. He gained three adult step-children and, although the working hours haven’t changed, there’s another person to factor into his decisions these days.
So the past five years have been…
“Entertaining,” he interjected.
Not that he’s ever stayed anywhere for long. The six seasons he spent as an assistant at the University of Nebraska-Omaha represented the longest time he’s spent in one place. He doesn’t necessarily love moving — who does? — but he’s accepted it, especially at the NHL level.
“When I left BU, I knew I was going to get fired,” Quinn said. “That’s just the reality of the situation.”
This is his next chance, a chance to prove that the work he did in New York was good work. That he can succeed in the NHL, that anything that went wrong was fixable, correctable. He will have to suffer through New England Patriots games at 10 am and the fear that someday, for some reason, he will likely be fired again.
So how will Grier judge Quinn, at least to start?
“It’s seeing off the ice how we’re doing culture-wise. Is the culture being built? Is it a good vibe in the building, how we’re treating each other, how we’re working with one another, how we re preparing for games, how we’re eating, how we’re working out?” Grier said. “On the ice, it’s, are we competing every night? Are we playing hard? Are we playing fast? Are we being unselfish? Are we being good teammates?”
Nothing is assured. Quinn, though, is thrilled for the chance to try.
“I feel like I’m ready for this next challenge,” Quinn said. “I’m excited about this next challenge. I’m 56 years old. I don’t feel it. I’m as excited today as I was when I took my first job at Northeastern 30 years ago at 26.”
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