As tough as the economy is these days, it's apparently as good a time to be shopping for a new guy behind the bench as a new house.
In fact teams in the market are plenty of choices now that the fired coaching carousel added another member today in Ron Wilson, who was sent packing by the San Jose Sharks. The move was widely expected after the team failed once again to live up to expectations in the playoffs.
Wilson barely hung on to his job last year when San Jose came up short in the post season and he was criticized for his handling of players, most notably captain Patrick Marleau. But his survival was implicitly tied to him taking the Sharks on a longer run this time around and that didn't happen.
It certainly didn't help Wilson to have his team play so well down the stretch after the Sharks made a major deadline deal to acquire puck-moving defenseman Brian Campbell. The newcomer was supposed to be the missing piece for the Sharks and he looked it at first because San Jose picked up points in 18 straight games after the deal and captured first place in the tough Pacific Division. It held out the promise of big things in the playoffs, but the Sharks barely survived a seven-game opening round series with Calgary and then dropped the first two games of the semifinals at home to Dallas before eventually succumbing in six games.
Through it all questions of character and leadership around the Sharks continued to be raised and the response of GM Doug Wilson (no relation) indicated he believed they were valid.
"Ron helped foster a new era in San Jose Sharks hockey, however we ultimately decided it is time for a different voice and a different approach to lead this team," the general manager said in a statement. "We feel this team is capable of achieving greater success."
Chances are that Doug Wilson will be making several other moves before training camp begins, but in the meantime, he did the decent thing by releasing the coach to pursue other opportunities before they close up. And there are several vacancies now, two of which became available last week when Colorado parted ways with Joel Quenneville and Toronto dumped Paul Maurice.
Meanwhile, the Florida Panthers, Ottawa Senators and Atlanta Thrashers have had openings since the end of the regular season, and it is possible the Tampa Bay Lightning, Carolina Hurricanes and Los Angeles Kings could create some soon as well.
So there will be plenty of potential landing spots for Wilson, who was won 518 games during his career with San Jose, Washington and Anaheim, but there will be plenty of competition as well.
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