Pittsburgh Penguins

Penguins assistant named USA Hockey assistant coach

Scott Young has enjoyed quite the summer in 2017. First, the former Penguins right wing was elected to the United States Hockey Hall of Fame as a member of the Class of 2017. Then, on July 28, he was added to the Penguins’ hockey operations staff as director of player development.

Young’s summer got even better today Friday when USA Hockey announced that he will serve as an assistant coach on the 2018 United States Men’s Olympic Hockey Team that will compete in the PyeongChang Games.

Young will serve as an assistant on Tony Granato’s staff alongside fellow assistant coaches Chris Chelios, Ron Rolston and Keith Allain.

This will mark the fourth time that Young has represented the United States in the Olympics, having played in the 1988, 1992 and 2002 Games. Young and the Americans, led by the legendary Herb Brooks, captured a silver medal in the ’02 Games. In 2002 career Olympic Games as a player, Young tallied eight goals and 15 points.

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Young also skated for the victorious American entry into the World Cup of Hockey in 1996, producing four points (2G-2A). The entire 1996 United States World Cup championship team, which defeated Canada, was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame as a group in 2016.

Young and Granato were teammates on the 1988 Olympic team, tying for second on the club in scoring with eight points each. Their teammates on that squad included future Penguin Kevin Stevens, current Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins head coach Clark Donatelli and Hall of Famer Brian Leetch.

Granato was a Penguins assistant coach for five seasons from 2009-14. During that span, the Penguins won more cumulative games than any team in the NHL, and the penalty kill, which Granato oversaw, owned the third-best success rate in the league, killing off nearly 85 percent of the opposition’s power-play opportunities.

Of the last five American head coaches at the Olympics, three have had ties to the Penguins. Brooks, the coach of the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" squad, was at the time a Penguins scout, and also a former Pens head coach, when he won a silver medal in the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. Dan Bylsma was in his sixth season as Pittsburgh’s head coach when he was the bench boss of the 2014 U.S. Team that competed at the Sochi Games. Granato was one of Bylsma’s assistants at the 2014 Olympics.

 

Cox Media Group

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