How Minnesota’s John Hynes lent the Sharks a hand earlier this season
John Hynes is now in his fourth month as coach of the Minnesota Wild. But he was around the San Jose Sharks in early November for a handful of practices, acting as a sounding board of sorts for coach and longtime friend David Quinn.
As the Sharks were enduring a 0-10-1 start to the season, capped by a 10-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Nov. 4, Quinn began to implement an idea — related to the way the team broke out of its zone — that he and Hynes discussed, along with other members of the staff.
“We were at the point where we were (looking to) change some things,” Quinn said.
The tweak didn’t cure all that ailed the Sharks, but it helped snap their 11-game losing streak and later end November on a more positive note. The Sharks (15-38-6) still use the idea to this day.
“So I would say since that first 10-game stretch, we’ve changed three things,” Quinn said. “One of them was some of the things that John and I were talking about.”
The plan back in early November was for Hynes, who had been let go as coach of the Nashville Predators in May, to be around the Sharks about once a month.
By the end of November, though, Hynes was again behind a bench. Wild general manager Bill Guerin fired Dean Evason as coach after a 5-10-4 start to the season and replaced him with Hynes, who had at the time a career NHL coaching record of 284-255-63.
Quinn wasn’t surprised.
“Obviously in this profession, unfortunately, we lose our jobs quickly as coaches,” Quinn said. “You have a bad one-month stretch and all of a sudden people are talking about your job.
“I knew of (Hynes’) relationship with (Guerin). The way John is thought of and perceived in the NHL, I knew he was going to get a job. If there was going to be a job opening this year, he was going to be at the top of people’s list.”
The Wild are 23-17-2 under Hynes and are on the fringes of competing for a playoff position. Minnesota enters Sunday on a three-game losing streak and is eight points out of the Western Conference’s second wild-card spot with 21 games left to play.
“He’s done a heck of a job since he’s been there, and I knew he would,” Quinn said of Hynes. “I know they’ve had a couple of tough losses here over the last week, which put them on the outside looking in the playoff spot. But this is a dangerous team.”
HERTL IMPROVING: Sharks center Tomas Hertl hasn’t started to skate again but is improving, Quinn said, after he had a procedure on Feb. 12 to clean out loose cartilage in his left knee.
Not including Sunday, Hertl has now missed 10 straight games, including eight since the procedure. Starting with a Jan. 30 game against Seattle, the Sharks are 2-6-2 without him in the lineup, and 1-6-1 without him and Logan Couture (groin).
Both Hertl and Couture want to return before the end of the regular season on April 18.
“When we left (San Jose on Friday), he was feeling good,” Quinn said of Hertl. “Making good progress.”