Ex-Sharks player joins coaching staff

Patrick Marleau is coming home to the San Jose Sharks once more.

The franchise’s all-time leader in games, goals and points has been hired as a player development coach and hockey operations advisor, the club announced Friday. Marleau had last played in the 2020-21 and spent the 2022-23 season as an assistant coach with his son Landon’s AAA team in Florida. Now, he joins former Sharks teammate turned GM Mike Grier to assist with the Sharks and AHL San Jose Barracuda players in skill development and offer assistance on the hockey operations side.

“It’s rare that you get the opportunity to add someone to your organization that brings a level of talent and like Patrick Marleau,” said Grier in a team release.  “As one of the top players of his generation, Patty possesses an unlimited wealth of institutional knowledge about the game. Perhaps more importantly, he was a cornerstone piece in the Sharks becoming one of the NHL’s most dominant franchises over the last two decades and knows what it takes to win and succeed in the NHL. We are extremely happy to bring Patty back into the Sharks family as we continue building a team that our fans can be proud of.”

“I’m extremely excited to be officially back as part of the Sharks organization,” said Marleau in the release. “I’m looking forward to working with our players on the ice to help them reach their full potential and sharing the knowledge I have garnered from playing 23 years in the National Hockey League. I’m also eager to work with Mike and his staff, and to continuing to learn about the game and business side of hockey.”

Marleau, 43, broke Gordie Howe’s NHL record for career games in April 2021. Howe’s mark stood at 1,767, and Marleau retired in 2022 as the record holder with 1,779 career games. He played 1,607 of those with the Sharks, who drafted him second overall in 1997 and brought him directly to the NHL as an 18-year-old.

Marleau’s epically long and fruitful NHL career spanned 23 seasons, split between the Sharks, Toronto Maple Leafs and Pittsburgh Penguins. He retired with 566 goals and 1,197 points and captured Olympic gold playing for Canada at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games and the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.

Marleau will join a Sharks team that is very much in transition. Following a span of consistent competitiveness that included 14 playoff berths in a 15-season stretch between 2003-04 and 2018-19, the Sharks have now missed the playoffs four consecutive seasons. One of Grier’s first major moves as GM was trading away longtime franchise pillar defenseman Brent Burns last summer. This year, the Sharks launched into full rebuild mode when they traded top goal-scorer Timo Meier to the New Jersey Devils for a package including a 2023 first-round pick and defensive prospect Shakir Mukhamadullin. Their own first-round pick next in next week’s NHL Draft will come fourth overall, and they own New Jersey’s pick at 26^th overall.