The Dallas Stars announced Monday that they’ve hired 2023 Stanley Cup champion Misha Donskov as an assistant coach, reuniting with head coach Peter DeBoer in the Lone Star State. Donskov was part of DeBoer’s staff when he coached the Vegas Golden Knights from 2020 to 2022.
Donskov, 46, is quite a well-known name in hockey circles, playing a large role in developing expansion markets in Vegas and Columbus. His family-operated business, Donskov Hockey Development, has been one of the largest drivers of youth hockey participation in Columbus, and anyone involved with the Blue Jackets would tell you his influence on the market has been immeasurable.
After also holding a similar youth hockey/education role with the Atlanta Thrashers in the late 2000s, Donskov’s coaching career began in earnest with the OHL’s London Knights as an assistant in 2009-10. He later moved throughout the junior ranks, later serving on the bench of the Ottawa 67’s and Canada’s World Junior teams in the mid-2010s. In 2016, he was brought in as one of the founding members of the Golden Knights’ front office, joining the team as their director of hockey operations. Vegas transitioned him to an assistant coaching role in 2020 during the COVID pause, and he began in his role behind the bench during that year’s postseason in the Edmonton bubble.
Donskov joins another former Vegas assistant, Steve Spott, as an assistant on DeBoer’s staff in Dallas. Alain Nasreddine, former interim head coach of the New Jersey Devils, rounds out DeBoer’s slate of assistants.