Florida Panthers General Manager Bill Zito announced today the club has added Ulf Samuelsson to the club’s coaching staff as an assistant coach.
The 56-year-old Samuelsson joins the Panthers coaching staff with over 30 years of professional hockey experience as both a player and coach.
The native of Fagersta, Sweden, most recently served as Head Coach of Leksands IF of the Swedish Hockey League (SHL) in 2019-20 and spent time as a scout with the incoming Seattle Kraken NHL franchise.
Over a 15-year coaching career, Samuelsson has served as an assistant coach in the National Hockey League for the Phoenix Coyotes (2006-07 to 2010-11), New York Rangers (2013-14 to 2015-16) and Chicago Blackhawks (2017-18 to 2018-19). He served as Head Coach of MODO Hockey in Sweden for two seasons (2011-12 to 2012-13) and spent one season (2016-17) as Head Coach of the Charlotte Checkers of the American Hockey League (AHL).
During his sixteen-year playing career, Samuelsson won two consecutive Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991 and 1992.
The longtime NHL defenseman was originally selected by the Hartford Whalers in the fourth round (67th overall) of the 1982 NHL Draft. He played in 1,080 career NHL regular season games for Hartford (1984-85 to 1990-91), Pittsburgh (1990-91 to 1994-95), the New York Rangers (1995-96 to 1998-99), Detroit Red Wings (1998-99) and Philadelphia Flyers (1999-00), producing 332 points (57-275-332) and logged 2,453 penalty minutes, the most among Swedish-born NHLers all-time.