Breaking: Blackhawks hire two former players to join coaching staff

Quenneville’s staff, and his possible replacements, are now in place.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 6 years ago
Breaking: Blackhawks hire two former players to join coaching staff
Keystone Press

The Chicago Blackhawks have announced that they’ve hired former NHL players Ulf Samuelsson and Don Granato as assistant coaches under head coach Joel Quenneville. The hirings had been rumored and speculated for weeks, but today’s announcement from the team makes it official. 

Samuelsson is a two-time Stanley Cup champion with the Pittsburgh Penguins and has a reputation as one of the biggest antagonizers in NHL history. Since retiring in the NHL in 2000, the big Swede has held assistant coaching jobs in several organizations and was most recently the head coach of the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers. 

Granato, brother of NHL great Tony Granato and US Olympian Cammi Granato, never ascended to the heights of his siblings on the ice, but is an accomplished coach with over 20 years of experience at the minor league and junior level. He’s been the head coach of the US National Development Team since 2013-14, but will be behind an NHL bench for the first time in 2017-18.