Four years after the end of his career, Luca Sbisa is helping young players on their way to the NHL. As a pioneer, he knows exactly what he's talking about.
08.10.2025, 05:00
08.10.2025, 06:36
SDA
After two intensive weeks of camps in San Jose and a rookie tournament in Anaheim, Luca Sbisa is glad to be back home. Home is in Nashville, where the 35-year-old will soon be moving into a new house with his wife and three children. This is close to the new home of Bern's top defenseman Roman Josi, who has captained the Nashville Predators since the 2017/18 season.
The two are in contact as much as possible. Because Sbisa won't be bored even after his career ends in 2021. He has been a development coach in the San Jose Sharks organization since August 2022. In the season before that, he held the same position with the Anaheim Ducks - he played for the Californians from 2009 to 2014. He was drawn to the Sharks because there was a change of general manager at the Ducks and the new one (Pat Verbeek) demanded a higher workload from Sbisa. He didn't want that.
Like a big brother
"I don't do it to earn a lot of money, but to help young players," says the former defenseman in an interview with the Keystone-SDA news agency. It's important to him to spend enough time with his family, and that's why he quit Anaheim. Then came the offer from San Jose.
What exactly is Sbisa's job? First and foremost, he looks after the defensemen drafted by the Sharks who are still playing in juniors or on a college team. He visits them again and again during the season, analyzes games with them and also gives them valuable tips for their careers, including clear words. He also takes a close look at how a player behaves after a serious mistake, what their body language is like. "I deal with them as if I were their big brother," says Sbisa. When one of his protégés makes it to the NHL, it's "like my son is playing there".
Sbisa also goes to the Sharks' AHL team, the San Jose Barracuda, for a day once or twice a month. "We call it Development Day, and then we practice very simple things, such as a player driving with his head up behind his own goal. "Then you're amazed at how difficult it is because nobody else does it in training for fear of the puck rolling over their stick. In the game, however, you have to have your head up," says Sbisa. He spends seven to ten days a month on the road.
Sbisa also sees advantages in the fact that the Sharks are still in transition - they last reached the NHL play-offs in 2019. Weaker teams are allowed to draft players earlier in the draft. This allows him to work with top talents. One of them is Sam Dickinson, drafted at No. 11 in 2024, who was named the best defenseman in the WHL, OHL and QMJHL junior leagues last season. So the job is very fulfilling for Sbisa.
Proud of his career
Sbisa has plenty of experience to pass on. During 13 seasons, he played 581 games in the best ice hockey league in the world. Had he not been repeatedly injured, it would have been significantly more. An injury also forced him to end his career. On January 24, 2021, he suffered a concussion after an elbow check in his first game for the Nashville Predators. He consulted various specialists, but it didn't get any better. It was eventually discovered that a nerve in the vestibular system, which is responsible for spatial orientation among other things, had been damaged during the check.
Sbisa still suffers from symptoms today. Specifically, his eyes slow down when his pulse goes up, which has a negative effect on his perception. "I don't have any problems in everyday life," says Sbisa, "but of course I can't play ice hockey at the highest level like this. I now have a good excuse when I play tennis and lose (laughs). No, no, I'm taking the whole thing positively. It could have been worse. Of course it hurt when I had to stop, but I'm proud of my career."
All the more so because at the time of Sbisa's debut in the NHL, on October 11, 2008, there was only one Swiss outfielder, Mark Streit, who had previously left a bigger mark in this league. Sbisa was also the first Swiss player to make the leap to the NHL via a North American junior league. He can therefore be described as a pioneer. "Playing in the NHL as an 18-year-old was unimaginable for me," he admits. This is despite the fact that he set his sights on the NHL at a camp when he was just ten years old.
For Sbisa, the highlights of his career are the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, where he met his wife, and the 2018 Stanley Cup Final with the Vegas Golden Knights, which he lost 4-1 to the Washington Capitals. "It still hurts when I think about the final," says Sbisa. "It was my biggest dream ever to win the Stanley Cup."
When Sbisa left his home club EV Zug in 2007 and moved to North America, he thought it was just for a year to learn English. Now he still lives there, Nashville is his home.
