SAN JOSE — Wayne Thomas, who spent 45 years i n professional hockey, first as an NHL goalie with three Original Six franchises, and then began a post-playing career that included over two decades with the San Jose Sharks as a coach and executive, died Wednesday after a long battle with cancer, the team announced. Thomas was 77.

Following his retirement as a player in 1981, Thomas spent over a decade coaching, both as an assistant in the NHL and as a head coach in the now-defunct IHL, before joining the Sharks in 1993 to work as an assistant to the general manager and assistant coach.

Over the next 21 years, Thomas would assume a larger, day-to-day role in working with the Sharks’ goaltenders, including Evgeni Nabokov, the organization’s all-time winningest goaltender. He later beca

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