Preview/Lines #44: Warsofsky’s Philosophy on Scratching, Benching Players

To scratch or not to scratch, that is the young player’s question.

San Jose Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky spoke on Thursday about wanting players to play free, but also when it’s time to take away playing time.

So why does Warsofsky scratch players from time to time? He explained some of his coaching philosophy, which doesn’t include doghouses, and discussed Ty Dellandrea and Klim Kostin and Shakir Mukhamadullin’s development.

Reporter: How do you communicate with players like Ty Dellandrea and Klim Kostin, who have sat for a while?

Ryan Warsofsky: You got to work with them. The big thing is that they need to know that they’re struggling. I need to know that they know it. Now, if they don’t see it the way I see it, we got to sit down have a conversation. Most of the times, the players are understanding of that.

Dellandrea and Kostin are very similar. They knew when their game was struggling. And it’s up to me and the coaches to to work with them and support them, and go through it and break it down and watch the video, or maybe it’s going out there early, or maybe it’s staying out late, find different ways to get them out of what they’re going through.

Usually the mental block is the hardest block, getting through that aspect of, I always say it’s very hard for a human to go out and say, Hey, we’re going to have a great game. That’s really, really difficult, because this is a game of mistakes. I want you to have a really good shift, and if you don’t have a good shift, come back to the bench and reset yourself again. So trying to find the mental game a little bit.

A guy, for instance, like Mukh, he’s just overthinking the game, and he’s just got to go play.

When we grew up, playing at 4, 5, 6, 7 years old, that’s what you did, you went out and played. So he’s just got to go out and play, compete and play towards his strengths.

The big thing is, I’m not one to put guys in doghouses. I think that separates me from the group, I’m no bigger than the group. We’re all in this together. We got to work together to get the best out of the player, from the coaching staff on down.

Sheng Peng: How do you balance wanting players to play free and when it’s time to bench them?

RW: There’s a big balance to that.

A lot of it comes down to how many times have we talked about the mistake? Is this the third, fourth, fifth time, or is this the first time?

Depending where we are in the game. There’s a lot of different variables to that.

There’s a lot of different instances and examples of things, whether that’s a one-on-one meeting with myself, with our coaches, and we’re showing it.

Is it a gameplan thing? This is the thing that we cannot do tonight that’s going to kill us. And we keep doing it and doing it.

Those are all things, when you’re trying to change a culture and understand where we’re at as an organization, we want to be a team that’s really starting to consistently win and grow this thing year after year.

Nothing against other teams, but we don’t want to be in this 10-12 year window where we’re still trying to figure out how to win. We’re trying to nip that stuff in the bud right now and create that culture where we can’t afford to make 2, 3, 4 mistakes. Doesn’t matter if you’re 18 or you’re 37. We got to be a team that has an understanding of what it takes to win.

SP: How do you deal with a player who’s in the mindset of feeling like any mistake will get him benched?

RW: Every guy’s a little bit different. Every guy takes the coaching and the teaching a little bit differently. There’s language barriers. There’s a lot of different things that go on. But I’d say, you have to have a feel of it as a coach.

They have to have a self-awareness of what’s going on. And usually, our guys are like, I know I can’t turn that puck over. Okay, so why did you turn that puck over? Why are you in this mental space of where you’re struggling to make plays?

You have to break it down and peel the onion back a little bit, but again, I want our guys to play free and be competitive. I want to see a guy, if he does turn a puck over, does he track as hard as he can back? Is their effort there?

You don’t just, he turned the puck over three times. You have to figure out why. What is the why, and what are the other ways you can teach and coach and all those things.

But sometimes, in [close] games, 3-2, we’ve turned a puck over, enough’s enough. So you have some balance to it, for sure.

San Jose Sharks (13-24-6)

Alexandar Georgiev will start, here’s how the rest of the lines should look like:

Zetterlund-Granlund-Eklund
Graf-Wennberg-Toffoli
Kunin-Celebrini-Smith
Kostin-Dellandrea-Goodrow

Thrun-Ceci
Liljegren-Ferraro
Mukhamadullin-Rutta

Georgiev

Utah Hockey Club (17-16-7)

Karel Vejmelka will start.

New forward lines:

Keller – Cooley – Schmaltz
Maccelli – Hayton – Doan
O’Brien – Bjugstad – Crouse
Kerfoot – Stenlund – McBain#UtahHC

— Brogan Houston (@houston_brogan) January 10, 2025

Confirmed: Nick DeSimone is playing tonight. https://t.co/9x1EYb0SMz

— Brogan Houston (@houston_brogan) January 10, 2025

Utah Hockey Club forward Dylan Guenther will be out indefinitely (lower body).

Josh Doan has been recalled from the Tucson Roadrunners (AHL).#UtahHC

— Cole Bagley (@BagleyKSLsports) January 10, 2025

Where To Watch

Puck drop between the San Jose Sharks and Utah Hockey Club is 6 PM PT at Delta Center. Watch it live on NBC Sports California. Listen to it on the Sharks Audio Network.