Dan Bylsma
Dan Brian Bylsma ( born September 19, 1970 in Grand Haven, Michigan ) is a retired American professional ice hockey player and current coach, which is since 2009 in the Pittsburgh Penguins in the National Hockey League contract.
Career as a player
Dan Bylsma began his career as a hockey player in the team of the Bowling Green State University, where he was active from 1988 to 1992. During this period, he was selected in the NHL Entry Draft in 1989 in the sixth round as the 109th overall player of the Winnipeg Jets, for whom he never played, however. Instead, the attacker played from 1992 to 1994 for their farm teams. Greensboro Monarchs of the East Coast Hockey League and the American Hockey League teams Rochester Americans, Moncton Hawks, Albany River Rats and Moncton Hawks On 7 July 1994, the left gunner received a contract with the Los Angeles Kings, for whom he made his debut in the National Hockey League in the 1995/96 season, where he remained point and impunity in four games. In his first two seasons with the franchise of the Kings, he played mainly for their farm team in the International Hockey League, the Phoenix Roadrunners.
After four more years with the Los Angeles Kings of the NHL Bylsma signed in the summer of 2000 in their league rivals, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, with whom he reached the final of the Stanley Cup in the 2002/03 season, in which he and his team the New Jersey Devils only narrowly lost with 3:4. After the following season, he finished his career as a player.
Career as a coach
Immediately on his last year as an active Bylsma started his coaching career and worked in the 2004/05 season as assistant coach for the AHL farm team of his former club Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks, for whom he had played in the previous year itself. In the season 2005/ 06 the Americans stood by the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League as an assistant coach under contract. In the summer of 2007, joined the former winger for the Pittsburgh Penguins franchise, for their AHL farm team, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins then he ever worked for a year as assistant coach and head coach. On February 15, 2009 Bylsma took over the office of the dismissed head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins, which he for the third Stanley Cup success led at the end of the 2008/09 season since its inception.
His contract in Pittsburgh was extended by three years until the end of season 2013/14 in March 2011. Bylsma had the Penguins until then led to a winning rate of 64.9 percent and reached a franchise record.
Awards and achievements
- 2009 Stanley Cup win with the Pittsburgh Penguins
- 2011 Jack Adams Award