He earned the nickname Disco Dan as a player with a penchant for busting a move in the locker room, but Coachella Valley Firebirds head coach Dan Bylsma didn’t retire his dance moves when he hung up his skates.
“After a win, he’ll dance a little bit,” said Firebirds center Cameron Hughes, who, like Bylsma is back with the Firebirds as they begin year two of this desert hockey adventure with the season-opener Friday night. “After big wins he gets some dances going. They’re pretty good. I don’t know what they are, exactly, but they’re funny and we look forward to seeing them.”
Bylsma, now 53 years old, has had a lot of reasons to dance during his coaching career.
He caught lightning in a bottle in 2009 when he was named the Pittsburgh Penguins interim coach mid-season after the firing of coach Michel Therrien. Remarkably, Bylsma’s team finished the regular season 18-3-4, made the playoffs and went on to win the Stanley Cup title. The Grand Haven, Michigan, native became just the fifth American-born coach to win a Stanley Cup at the time. He also became the fastest coach to win 200 NHL games and was the NHL coach of the year in 2010-2011 for another impressive run with the Penguins.
After a 12-year playing career with the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Mighty Ducks, Bylsma coached in the NHL from 2008-17, spending seven years with the Penguins and two years with the Buffalo Sabres. Since then he had bounced around as an assistant coach before taking on the unusual coaching challenge of starting an American Hockey League team in the Southern California desert.
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So while the Firebirds franchise and players and arena and operation were all new 365 days ago, an experienced veteran of hockey at every level was steering the ship. And when he looks back on the storybook inaugural Firebirds season which started with 22 straight road games and finished in a soldout Game 7 of the Calder Cup Final, he does so with great pride.
“My gut answer is that it was my most enjoyable year of coaching,” Bylsma said. “It was what we accomplished and where we went, obviously it didn’t end with a championship, but it was a great year. It was a unique coaching opportunity for me and it was awesome. That doesn’t make much sense when you hold it up to ’09, I get that. Winning the Stanley Cup was the highlight of my career and it will always be that way. But last year, I think was my most enjoyable year.”
Coaching style
Bylsma has that deft ability that all good coaches have to be able to be authoritative when necessary, and light-hearted at the right time. He’s serious and quick-witted in equal measure. Sometimes stern, sometimes goofy with a baseline somewhere in between.
What he says in post-game press conferences is even-keeled and professional, but at the same time, it’s easy to tell whether his team just won or lost. After a win, he’s playful, maybe grabbing the microphone stand and doing some Elvis-style moves with it. After a loss, he’s … less so.
One thing is clear, though. Even after all these years and having coached at hockey’s highest level, every game still matters to him. Whether it’s a Stanley Cup final against the Detroit Red Wings or a Firebirds regular-season game against the Henderson Silver Knights, he cares. And that rubs off on his players.
In just a year, Bylsma has created a culture with the Firebirds that players love to be a part of. Of course, player development is the cornerstone of an AHL team, but this group is all about winning, but also enjoying the process at the same time. The players trust Bylsma and he reciprocates.
“He’s great because he trusts in his players and he’s a great communicator with the guys,” said Kole Lind, a returning right winger for the Firebirds. “If there’s things that he doesn’t like seeing in your game, he’ll let you know and that’s how you gain trust. He wants you to be reliable all over the ice and from there you build off of it and grow into a better player ready for bigger situations.”
All of the Firebirds players want to get to the NHL, and since Bylsma’s been there, and has hoisted the Stanley Cup, that carries a lot of weight. But his personality is what wins over his players even more. The phrase “fun to play for” almost always comes up.
“He has so much experience that it’s like you can kind of tell he’s got a confidence in the process that he has and we all believe in it,” Hughes said. “He’s a great leader for us. Great coach. It’s been a lot of fun playing for him, and I’m looking forward to it again.”
And then there’s the player-development aspect of his job with the Firebirds. Winning games is vital, but Bylsma and his talented coaching staff of assistants Jessica Campbell, Stu Bickel and goaltender coach Colin Zulianello are focused on making the players NHL-ready so they can leave the desert and become useful members of the Seattle Kraken.
And it’s working. Tye Kartye was an undrafted player who blossomed under Bylsma and Company, and now plays for the Kraken. Same story for beloved Firebirds goaltender Joey Daccord. That doesn’t go unnoticed by the young talents still in the desert.
“Obviously we know his accomplishments. He’s won a Stanley Cup, so to learn from a guy like that and have him help me grow as a player is really huge for me and huge for my development,” said 19-year-old Shane Wright, the Kraken’s top draft pick in 2022, who will play full-time with the Firebirds this year. “And he’s a great guy. Players on this team want to play for him, want to fight for him. We’re lucky to have a guy like that for sure.”
The future
Wright brings up a good point. The Firebirds are lucky to have a coach of Bylsma’s pedigree leading the team.
He’s had success in the NHL, and he surely impressed the hockey world at large with what he accomplished with the Firebirds last season. It’s a valid question to ask if Bylsma is attracting the attention of NHL suitors. After last season there were six different NHL teams looking for a new coach. After this season, job opportunities will no doubt open up again.
Bylsma answered thoughtfully when asked what his future might hold.
“Yes, I have aspirations to coach at the National Hockey League level again, but I want that opportunity to be just like the one I have here,” Bylsma said. “I mentioned at the beginning of this conversation that my gut tells me that I’m going to look back on my coaching career and last year will be one of the best. That’s what I’m looking for in the future.
“The opportunity I have right now is a great one,” he said. “Great chance to coach a great team, great organization, great people that all have the same mindset and goals for the team and the players. I get to coach great players and put them on the ice. That whole process is what made last year great and that’s what I’d be looking for.”
For now, Bylsma’s focus is on year two of the Firebirds and as is the nature of the American Hockey League, each year starts with a new challenge of integrating new players and returning players into one cohesive operation. It’s a puzzle that can be fun for a coach to try to solve.
“That’s the great thing about the American Hockey League is that it’s never the same,” Byslma said. “New faces come in, people have moved on. We’re excited for guys like Tye and Joey to move to the NHL, but new guys will join. There’s always a sense of starting over and new beginnings in the AHL.”
And that dove-tails nicely with Bylsma’s overriding philosophy of life, and that is just to be in the moment.
“That’s my mindset as a coach and as a person, I suppose. Be in the moment. Do everything you can to be better and that’s an everyday, moment-by-moment thing,” Bylsma said. “That’s why last year was so great. We were in the moment. Trying to be our best in sometimes difficult situations. I like to be in the moment, I want the players to be in the moment.”
That first moment comes Friday night against the Bakersfield Condors in the season opener. The final moment of the 2023-24 season? Perhaps it will be the kind of moment that will give Disco Dan the chance to dance.
Shad Powers is a columnist for The Desert Sun. Reach him at shad.powers@desertsun.com.
Dan Bylsma file
Age: 53
Family: Bylsma and his wife Mary Beth have been married for 22 years and have a son named Bryan, who is a software engineer living in Utah.
Home: Bylsma was born in Grand Haven, Michigan, and has a home in Ludington, Michigan, where he spent the summer fishing and relaxing.
As an NHL player: Bylsma was in the NHL for 12 years, playing in a total of 429 games for the Los Angeles Kings and the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. He had 19 goals and 43 assists.
As an NHL coach: He coached for nine years, seven with the Penguins including a Stanley Cup title in 2009, and two with the Buffalo Sabres. He coached in 565 games and finished with a 320-190-55 record. He also coached the U.S. Hockey Team in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, to a fourth-place finish, losing the bronze medal game to Finland.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Coachella Valley Firebirds coach Dan Bylsma has all the right moves
