When Bob Boughner left the San Jose Sharks coaching staff to take over as the head coach of the Florida Panthers it left an opening on Peter DeBoer’s staff.
On Monday, the Sharks filled that vacancy by bringing back Rob Zettler to serve as an assistant coach.
“Rob has extensive experience working as a coach at the NHL level and developing prospects as a head coach in the AHL,” said DeBoer in a team statement. “As we researched candidates during this process, reputable people that I spoke with kept coming back to me with the same words: communicator, teacher, and professional. We think he will be a tremendous asset to our staff.”
Before getting into coaching Zettler played 569 games as a defenseman in the NHL, including 196 with the Sharks in the first years of their existence.
He also spent time working as an assistant on Ron Wilson’s coaching staff in San Jose between 2002 and 2008.
Before rejoining the Sharks organization this time around his most recent coaching job was as the head coach of the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch, the top farm team of the Tampa Bay Lightning.