It’s not easy being a first year Head Coach in any league, let alone the second best league in North America. John McCarthy retired in 2019, joining the Barracuda coaching staff a day after his retirement. On May 18th, 2022, he was named the San Jose Barracuda‘s next head coach. He would coach the Barracuda to a 31-34-2-5 record, with 69 points and a .438 points percentage. On the surface, not a great record, but much better than the 46 points and .338 point percentage of the previous season.
I asked JD Young of Locked On Sharks and Inside the Rink how he thought McCarthy had done as a first time head coach. He said there were definitely some “growing pains” in the season, but that many players were put in positions to succeed, pointing to William Eklund playing in all situation including the penalty kill as an example. “There were some interesting line-up decisions, but every coach is going to have those […] and I think going forward we’re going to see a lot more players put in positions to succeed.”
McCarthy’s Areas of Improvement
The San Jose Barracuda improved in a lot of areas, but the main one this season was defence. In the 2021-22 season, the Barracuda were dead last in Goals Against, with 298 goals allowed in 68 games. In 2022-23, they allowed 249 in 72 games, and were 28th in the league. A small improvement, but definitely in the right direction.
The power play also improved, jumping from 17.9% to 20.1%. Only an improvement of about 2%, but it was good enough to jump from 24th in the league to 9th in the league.
McCarthy’s Areas of Back-sliding
The McCarthy-coached Barracuda allowed fewer goals overall this season than last, but their penalty kill, which was average last season at 16th in the league, and finished this season dead last, with a 74.7% success rate.
In addition to this, the Barracuda were about average in the number of penalties took, but Young talked about how the Barracuda need to improve on discipline next season. “There were a ton of games last year where they would start to get momentum and someone would take a dumb penalty.” The Barracuda were about average in Times Shorthanded this season, but they did have one of the league leaders in penalty minutes in Jeffrey Viel, who had 150 penalty minutes in 60 games, third in the AHL.
All of these things are things that the Head Coach can or should have an impact on, and next season I would expect the Barracuda to try and improve on the things they fell short on this season, especially even strength goals and the penalty kill.
John McCarthy will be missing some of his firepower, with the departure of his leading scorer Andrew Agozzino, and the presumed departure of William Eklund, but he’ll be gaining the San Jose Sharks Prospect of the Year Ethan Cardwell, and a full season of highly touted defensive prospect Shakir Mukhamadullin. He’ll also be gaining a year of experience, of seeing what did and didn’t work with this year’s Barracuda, and it’ll be interesting to see if there are any significant structural coaching changes when they hit this ice next month.
