David Quinn Fired As Sharks HC After Having NHL's Worst Record in 2023-24 Standings

The San Jose Sharks have fired head coach David Quinn after two seasons with the team.

Quinn will finish his Sharks tenure with a 41-98-25 overall record.

He was relieved of his duties six days after San Jose finished the 2023-24 season with 19 wins, the fewest in the NHL.

Quinn coached Boston University for five seasons and the New York Rangers for three prior to joining the Sharks in 2022.

The Sharks also announced that head athletic trainer Ray Tufts will not return to the team. Tufts spent more than two decades and worked more than 2,000 games with the club.

The changes were shared Wednesday by Sharks general manager Mike Grier, who joined the team just before Quinn's tenure began in 2022.

"After going through our end of the season process of internal meetings and evaluating where our team is at and where we want our group to go, we have made the difficult decision to make a change at the head coach position," Grier said.

"David is a good coach and an even better person. I would like to personally thank him for his hard work over these past two seasons. He and his staff did an admirable job under some difficult circumstances, and I sincerely appreciate how they handled the situation."

This is the second time in his NHL head coaching career Quinn has been fired. He was dismissed by the Rangers after the team missed the playoffs in 2021.

The Sharks started out the 2023-24 campaign by matching the longest season-opening losing streak in NHL history with an 0-10-1 record to start the season.

San Jose was not expected to be a playoff contender this season, but the team's situation was worsened by injuries to captain Logan Couture, who was only able to play six games due to a hip and groin injury, and winger Tomas Hertl, who was leading the Sharks in points when he was forced to undergo knee surgery in February.

The Sharks ended up trading Hertl at the March trade deadline, parting ways with one of the final members of the San Jose team which made it to the Stanley Cup Final in 2016.

Of the roster left by the end of the season, only winger Fabian Zetterlund had more than 20 goals on the season, and no players had exceeded 50 points.

The Sharks will now look to start fresh with a new coach and hopefully the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NHL Draft, which would allow the team to add star BU center Macklin Celebrini.

That means the upcoming draft lottery is likely to determine just how difficult it will be for Quinn's successor, who has not yet been named, to launch the Sharks' rebuild in 2024-25.