Sharks hire Ryan Warsofsky as new head coach

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Sharks hire Ryan Warsofsky as new head coach

2024-06-14 00:25 Last Updated At：00:30

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — The San Jose Sharks have promoted Ryan Warsofsky to become the team's new head coach after two years as an assistant under the recently fired David Quinn.

General manager Mike Grier announced Thursday that Warsofsky will become the 11th head coach in franchise history. He will be formally introduced at a news conference Monday.

“His track record of success at nearly every level of hockey as a head and assistant coach speaks for itself," Grier said in a statement. "Ryan knows our existing group well, has the respect of the players who he will be working with, and will be a great teacher for the young players who will be joining our organization.”

Warsofsky takes over a team that had struggled mightily since reaching the Western Conference Final in 2019. The Sharks went 41-98-25 in Quinn’s two seasons for the worst mark in the NHL in that span, including a league-worst 47 points this past season. San Jose’s 19 wins this season were the fewest in a full season since the franchise’s second year as an expansion team in 1992-93.

But after years of trading away high-priced stars like Erik Karlsson, Brent Burns, Tomas Hertl and Timo Meier, the Sharks are now in position for a revival. They won the draft lottery and are expected to take Hobey Baker winner Macklin Celebrini later this month as a major piece of the rebuild.

“I’m overwhelmed with gratitude and excitement to be named as the head coach of the San Jose Sharks,” Warsofsky said in a statement. “This is an organization that has a rich history of winning, and I can’t wait to get to work on coaching a team that our fans can be proud of.”

The 36-year-old Warsofsky was an assistant the past two seasons for San Jose with the primary responsibilities of overseeing the team’s defense and penalty kill. Working with one of the younger rosters in the NHL, the Sharks penalty kill ranked 18th in the NHL at 78.8% the past two seasons.

Warsofsky previously had been head coach of the Chicago Wolves for two seasons in the AHL. He led the Wolves to the AHL’s best regular-season record with a 50-16-5-5 record in 2021-22 and captured the 2022 Calder Cup.

He also spent one season as head coach of Charlotte in the AHL and two seasons as a head coach in the ECHL.

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Russia and Ukraine trade overnight aerial attacks after Putin sets out conditions for ceasefire

2025-03-15 23:29 Last Updated At：23:31

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia and Ukraine traded heavy aerial blows overnight, with both sides reporting Saturday more than 100 enemy drones over their respective territories.

The attacks comes less than 24 hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin met with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff to discuss details of the American proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in the war with Ukraine.

Putin told a press conference on Thursday that he supported a truce in principle but set out a host of details that need to be clarified before it is agreed. Kyiv has already endorsed the truce proposal, although Ukrainian officials have publicly raised doubts as to whether Moscow will commit to such a deal.

Speaking to reporters in Kyiv on Saturday, after virtual talks between Western allies hosted by U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Zelenskyy voiced Ukraine’s support for the 30-day full ceasefire proposal to discuss a longer-term peace plan, but said Russia would attempt to derail talks with conditions and “buts”.

Starmer has told allies to “keep the pressure” on Putin to back a ceasefire in Ukraine, hailing Ukraine as the “party of peace.” Starmer said Putin will “sooner or later” have to “come to the table.

In a statement earlier on Saturday, Zelenskyy had accused Moscow of building up forces along the border.

“The build up of Russian forces indicates that Moscow intends to keep ignoring diplomacy. It is clear that Russia is prolonging the war,” he said.

However, Zelenskyy stressed that if Russia did not agree with the U.S. proposal there would be “specific, harsh and straightforward” response from the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

He also said that Kyiv’s troops were maintaining their presence in Russia’s Kursk region after Trump said Friday that “thousands” of Ukrainian troops had been surrounded by the Russian military.

“The operation of our forces in the designated areas of the Kursk region continues,” Zelenskyy said. “Our troops continue to hold back Russian and North Korean groupings in the Kursk region. There is no encirclement of our troops.”

Ukraine’s air force said Saturday that Russia had launched a barrage of 178 drones and two ballistic missiles over the country overnight. The attack was a mixture of Shahed-type drones and imitation drones designed to confuse air defenses. Some 130 drones were shot down, while 38 more failed to reach their targets.

Russia attacked energy facilities, causing significant damage, striking energy infrastructure in the Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa regions, Ukraine’s private energy company DTEK said in a statement on Saturday. Some residents were left without electricity.

“The damage is significant. Energy workers are already working on the ground. We are doing everything possible to restore power to homes as soon as possible,” the energy firm said.

Falling drone debris in Russia’s Volgograd region sparked a fire in the Krasnoarmeysky district of the city, close to a Lukoil oil refinery, according to Gov. Andrei Bocharov, who provided no further details. Nearby airports temporarily halted flights, local media outlets reported. No casualties were reported.

The Volgograd refinery has been targeted by Kyiv’s forces on several occasions since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago, most recently in a drone attack on Feb. 15.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine