Dan Bylsma is slowly rounding out his assistant coaches, and today the Sabres new bench boss brought a very successful junior coach on board.
The Sabres announced this morning that Dan Lambert has been brought on board as one of Bylsma’s assistants, joining Terry Murray and Dave Barr. Lambert spend last year as the head coach of the Kelowna Rockets in the WHL, leading them to a 51-13-6 record, and was on the ice today at Sabres Development Camp working with the team’s recent draftees.
Lambert and Bylsma have been close friends for a while now, and Bylsma even was a guest coach in Kelowna last season. Lambert will give the Sabres someone familiar with bringing along young players, which will be useful on a team with multiple teenagers expected to win starting jobs this fall.
Give us your thoughts on the Sabres newest hire in the comments and see the full press release below:
BUFFALO, N.Y. (July 6, 2015) — The Buffalo Sabres today announced the team has hired Dan Lambert as an assistant coach. He joins Terry Murray and Dave Barr as the third assistant coach on head coach Dan Bylsma’s staff.
Lambert joins the Sabres after guiding the Kelowna Rockets (WHL) to a 53-13-6 record and a Western Conference title in his first season as head coach in 2014-15. The Rockets followed up their regular-season success by posting a 16-3 record in the WHL Playoffs, winning the Ed Chynoweth Cup and earning a berth in the Memorial Cup, where the team fell to the Oshawa Generals (OHL) in the Final.
Before taking over as head coach in Kelowna in 2014-15, Lambert spent five seasons as an assistant coach with the Rockets from 2009-10 to 2013-14. The St. Boniface, Manitoba native began his coaching career with Kelowna immediately after retiring from a 19-season professional playing career.
As a player, Lambert netted 15 points (6+9) in 29 NHL games for the Quebec Nordiques after the team drafted him in the sixth round (106th overall) of the 1989 NHL Draft. Lambert, a defenseman, also spent 10 seasons playing in Germany (DEL), including five seasons as the captain of the Hannover Scorpions. In 488 DEL games, Lambert had 299 points (80+219) and 667 penalty minutes.