The season-ticket holder was unhappy about something or other — Becher, the president of the San Jose Sharks, can’t remember what it was now — and he wasn’t letting up. So Becher threw out a Hail Mary. Who is your favorite player? Becher was expecting the usual suspects: Patrick Marleau or Joe Thornton or Brent Burns.
Instead, the fan said, “Doug.”
Doug Wilson, the team’s general manager from May 13, 2003, until April 7, 2022, had only played for the Sharks for two seasons, a mere 86 games in a career that would span 1,024 games in the NHL, the rest played for the Chicago Blackhawks. . But Becher saw an opening; he offered a sit-down with Wilson, the team’s first-ever captain.
“Literally, the guy started shaking,” Becher said.
The pair got on the phone. Wilson turned on the charm, listing off all the reasons why he shouldn’t even be in the fan’s top 10 favorite players. The ire was forgotten. The fan was happy.
“There’s probably a hundred of those stories I can come up with,” Becher said.
That is Wilson.
The Sharks will honor Wilson in a ceremony prior to their game against the Chicago Blackhawks at SAP Center on Saturday (10 pm ET; NBCSCA, NBCSCH, ESPN+, SN NOW), including the unveiling of a banner featuring Wilson’s contributions to the franchise.
Because those are many.
Under Wilson, who took a medical leave of absence from San Jose last November and stepped down in April, the Sharks became one of the NHL’s premier franchises, reaching the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 14 of the 15 seasons between 2003 and 2019. From 2003- 22, only two teams, the Pittsburgh Penguins (773) and Boston Bruins (769), won more regular-season games than the Sharks (763). They lost the Stanley Cup Final in 2016 to the Penguins in six games.
“Doug has literally touched every corner of the franchise, from being our first captain to being the emotional leader for those first two years to coming back, being the GM, the second-longest tenured GM in the history of hockey,” Becher said. of Wilson’s status behind only the Nashville Predators’ David Poile. “It’s overly simplified to say everywhere you go, you see vestiges of his fingerprints.
“Honoring him is sort of honoring our own legacy, not just honoring the man.”
Wilson was there from the start, after 14 seasons with the Blackhawks. He had 779 points (225 goals, 554 assists) in 938 games for Chicago as an intelligent defenseman with a big shot, scoring 39 goals in 1981-82 en route to winning the Norris Trophy, voted as the best defenseman in the NHL. He was traded to the expansion Sharks on Sept. 6, 1991 and was named captain, becoming a key part of developing a culture that endures to this day.
Wilson was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2020, his 24th year of eligibility, and inducted in 2021.
“I think to be in on the ground floor of something brand new was a wonderful challenge,” Wilson told NHL.com ahead of the Hall of Fame induction. “It was almost like a pioneer spirit and all the guys from those teams the first couple years that came out and played at the aromatic Cow Palace.
“But I think a lot of the players in the first couple of years in particular really created a great relationship with our fan base and all the players we’ve had over the years.”
Perhaps none more so than Wilson.
It was Wilson’s idea in the mid-2000s for San Jose players to hand deliver some of the season tickets to fans, with players like Thornton and Devon Setoguchi showing up on doorsteps. It was Wilson who continuously strived to make the team better with closer ties to the community in which it lives. It was Wilson who engineered trades for players like center Thornton, defensemen Burns and Erik Karlsson and drafted players like centers Joe Pavelski, Logan Couture and Thomas Hertlforward Timo Meier and defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic.
“He was the first captain and was really important as a player for the Sharks when they were getting going,” said Pavelski, the captain of the Sharks from 2015-19, who now plays for the Dallas Stars. “Then sliding right into that GM role and then holding that position and building that team from the ground up. He identified certain areas and creating that atmosphere at the Tank (SAP Center) was one that, as a player, was exciting to show up. and have a home game.”
San Jose was an inviting destination, not only for the California weather and the team’s perennial contender status, but for the atmosphere created.
“Doug always wanted to make San Jose a place that players wanted to play,” said his son, Doug Wilson, Jr., who worked in scouting and hockey operations with the Sharks for 10 years and is now an amateur scout with the Seattle Kraken. . “And they knew that the organization believed in them.
“I don’t think it’s a surprise that under his reign the Sharks were known for developing home-grown players because it was always Doug and [senior advisor] Tim Burke’s philosophy that if we invested a draft pick in you or traded for you or signed you as a free agent, you were one of our own.”
That was the way Couture, the current Sharks captain, felt. That Wilson believed in him. That he had not only selected him with the No. 9 pick in the 2007 NHL Draft, but that he had traded up to do so.
He felt the embrace of the organization, and of Wilson.
“He obviously means a lot to the Sharks,” Couture said. “He’d been with this organization for a long time. He set the standard and built teams that competed for a Stanley Cup year in and year out. In this league, that’s a tough thing to do. I think a lot of individuals in that room owes a lot to Doug and the organization as a whole, obviously.”
Couture offered three names that epitomize the Sharks, three that have meant more to the franchise than anyone: Thornton, Marleau and, of course, Wilson.
As Becher said, “My guess is long after I’ve left the organization — let’s call it 20, 30 years from now — the essence of Doug will still be there.”
NHL.com staff writer Tom Gulitti and NHL.com independent correspondent Taylor Baird contributed to this report
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