FanHouse

The other shoe finally dropped on San Jose Sharks head coach Ron Wilson today as the team announced that he had been dismissed and the search for a replacement would begin immediately.

I'm finding myself having a tough time saying much about this decision, as most of the hockey world knew all too well that if Wilson didn't manage to get his team -- seen as one of the most talented in all of hockey -- within striking distance of the Stanley Cup Finals this year, his tenure in the Bay Area would likely be terminated. And so it went.

In a little more than 4.5 seasons in San Jose, Wilson posted the most regular season wins (206) and the best winning percentage (.535) in team history. More importantly, however, was his 28-24 record in four playoff campaigns, never getting closer to the Cup than in 2004, when San Jose dropped the Western Conference Finals in six games to Calgary.

After watching Wilson up close for five full seasons in Washington, it was hard not to like him from the outside looking in. Brainy, unorthodox and frequently cantankerous, Wilson had a knack for the unusual and making it awfully entertaining. When the dominoes fell right in 1998, that earned him a trip to the Finals with Washington, where the Caps fell in four games to the Red Wings.

But after he was unexpectedly dismissed following Jaromir Jagr's first season in a Capitals uniform in 2001-02, a different story got passed along to the media through Washington General Manager George McPhee. In postseason evaluation interviews with players, McPhee kept getting the same message: Despite his unique and quirky style, Wilson had lost the locker room and players stopped listening to him. It was much longer before he lost his GM too. And after talking for a few minutes with the chief cook and bottle washer over at We Bleed Teal, the story seems much the same today.

So what's next? For San Jose and GM Doug Wilson it means looking for a coach who's going to inherit one of the best teams in hockey, but one that's probably going to need something of a heart transplant to get deeper into the playoffs. As for Wilson, I can't see him not getting another chance somewhere else. With a career winning percentage of .542, it's clear he knows how to win in the NHL. What isn't clear, however, is why he couldn't get any of his teams over that one last hump to a title. But then again, how many coaches ever do?