SAN JOSE - The Sharks are welcoming a familiar face back to the South Bay which is sure to make players, coaches and fans alike happy.
Team Teal announced Wednesday morning that Bob Boughner will be returning to the team as an assistant coach. Boughner was previously on the Sharks' coaching staff before from 2015 to 2017 before serving as the Florida Panthers' bench boss for the last two seasons.
"Bob already has strong relationships with many of our key players and we expect that he will reintegrate himself into our organization seamlessly," Sharks general manager Doug Wilson said in a statement.
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Boughner is a familiar presence with many Sharks on the current roster. He worked with the team's defensemen, and Brent Burns credited Boughner for his role in the blue liner's first career Norris Trophy win in 2016-17.
"I'm extremely excited that Bob has chosen to re-join our staff in San Jose," DeBoer said in a statement. "He and I have known each other for more than 20 years and we're very familiar with all the intangibles that he brings to our team."
In two seasons in south Florida, Boughner led the Panthers to an 80-62-22 record. Florida missed the postseason by a point in 2018, but didn't have the same success in Boughner's second season. The Panthers fired Boughner in April, and replaced him with Joel Quenneville a day later.
Boughner's firing prompted a strong reaction from one notable Sharks player.
Not surprisingly, Boughner is excited to return to San Jose.
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San Jose Sharks
"I'm very happy and proud to be re-joining the Sharks family," he said in the team's press release. "I want to thank Hasso Plattner and the ownership group, Doug and Pete for their loyalty and I look forward to getting to work and building off a very successful season that saw the Sharks come within two wins of returning to the Stanley Cup Final."
In related news, the Sharks announced that Rob Zettler will not return to the team next season. Zettler was an assistant in San Jose this past year, and began the season working with the team's defensemen. In December, he became the team's "eye in the sky" in the press box as part of a shuffling of the coaching staff's responsibilities.