Team officials of the Coachella Valley Firebirds announced recently that Dan Bylsma will be the team’s head coach, making him the team’s first head coach in the franchise’s history.
According to the Coachella Valley Firebirds website, the team is the 32nd American Hockey League (AHL) franchise to join the organization. The team is a farm team of the Seattle Kraken for the 2021-2022 season, which is the National Hockey League’s (NHL) latest franchise. Currently, the affiliation is anticipated to last only one year as the team awaits construction of an arena slated to be built in Palm Desert. Nonetheless, the general manager of the Seattle Kraken appointed Dan Bylsma as the Firebirds’ first head coach.
“We are thrilled to welcome Dan Bylsma to the Firebirds family and look forward to his leadership in building a unified roster of players, as well as creating a championship product on the ice,” Coachella Valley Firebirds President Steve Fraser said, according to the website.
Coach Bylsma has had a wide-reaching hockey career, according to News Channel 3. Bylsma was previously an NHL coach for a total of eight seasons between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Buffalo Sabres. He coached the Penguins for six years and led the team to winning a Stanley Cup in 2009, and later won a Jack Adams Award in 2011– recognizing him as the league’s most outstanding coach.
Bylsma was the head coach of the U.S Olympic Hockey Team for the 2014 Sochi Olympics. He initially started coaching in the AHL during the 2004-2005 season as assistant coach for the Cincinnati and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
In addition to being a coach, Bylsma played 429 NHL games during nine seasons. He played as a winger for Los Angeles and Anaheim. Additionally, he spent time playing in the AHL, International Hockey League and East Coast Hockey League during his career as a player, which brings the sum of professional games he’s competed in to 840.
