Tony Granato tapped as UW hockey coach – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Jeff Potrykus of the Journal Sentinel

Madison – The man set to take over the University of Wisconsin men’s hockey program won’t require a crash course in its rich history and tradition of winning.

A source close to the UW program on Sunday confirmed reports that Tony Granato, who played at UW from 1983 through 1987 and has coached in the National Hockey League for more than a decade, has agreed to take over the Badgers program. An announcement on the hiring is expected this week.

Granato, 51, is expected to hire two assistants who have strong ties to the program and helped UW win a national title in 1990 — Mark Osiecki, who was an assistant at UW when the Badgers won their last national title, in 2006; and Don Granato, younger brother of Tony who was also on the ’90 championship team.

Tony Granato replaces Mike Eaves, who was fired earlier this month after 14 seasons.

Tony Granato has been an assistant with the Detroit Red Wings of the NHL since 2014. Before joining the Red Wings, he spent five seasons as an assistant with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Before that, he was the head coach in parts of three seasons with the Colorado Avalanche, from 2002-’04 and 2008-’09.

He played 13 seasons in the NHL with the New York Rangers, Los Angeles Kings and San Jose Sharks, finishing with 264 goals and 271 assists in 853 regular-season and playoff games.

Osiecki, 47, is an associate coach with the Rockford Ice Hogs of the American Hockey League. He coached the Green Bay Gamblers of the United States Hockey League for seven seasons (1997-2004) before returning to UW as an assistant under Eaves. He was regarded as an outstanding recruiter and excelled at developing defensemen. Osiecki was the head coach at Ohio State for three seasons (2010-’13).

Don Granato, 48, is a coach with the USA Hockey National Team Development program. He previously served as the head coach with six minor league teams: Worcester and Chicago of the AHL, Columbus and Peoria of the East Coast Hockey League and with Green Bay and the Wisconsin Capitols of the USHL.

UW officials hope the trio can restore luster to a program that has fallen on hard times in recent seasons.

The Badgers,who fielded 13 freshmen and eight sophomores this season, finished in sixth place in the six-team Big Ten with a 3-13-4 record. They lost to Penn State in the opening round of the Big Ten tournament to finish 8-19-8 and missed the NCAA tournament for the second consecutive season.

That finish came on the heels of UW posting a 4-26-5 mark in 2014-’15, the worst record in program history.

UW has six national titles.

Bob Johnson, who built the program into a national power, led UW to titles in 1973, ’77 and ’81. UW won titles in 1983 and ’90 under Jeff Sauer and in 2006 under Eaves.

The Badgers reached the title game in 2010 under Eaves but suffered a 5-0 loss to Boston College.

UW made the NCAA tournament just twice in the six seasons since that loss to Boston College. UW suffered a 6-1 first-round loss to UMass Lowell in 2013 and a 5-2 first-round loss to North Dakota in 2014.

Those results, coupled with back-to-back losing seasons, led to the firing of Eaves. With the hiring of Tony Granato, UW officials hope the Badgers can once again challenge for NCAA titles.