Wednesday was a busy day for the greatest state in the union, as the Devils added Anthony Mantha to the forward group and added several new faces to the coaching ranks. The biggest “name” guy of the group is Ted Donato, so let’s meet one of the new bench bosses and what he brings to the organization.

Donato, 57, was a prolific scorer with 144 points in 106 games during his 4 years (87-88 to 90-91), serving as the captain for his Senior year where he had 56 points. Harvard won the NCAA title in his sophomore season where he was named the Frozen Four MVP. Donato has represented the United States as a player and coach several times throughout his hockey career including the 1988 WJC and later led the U.S. with seven points (4g-3a) at the 1992 Winter Olympic Games. The U.S. named Donato captain for the 1997 World Championships and he also represented the U.S. at the 1999 and 2002 WC.

He would go on to to turn pro joining his hometown Boston Bruins who selected Donato with the 98th overall pick in the 1987 NHL Draft. He played in parts of 13 NHL seasons, from 1991-92 to 2003-04, with Boston, New York Islanders, Ottawa, Anaheim, Dallas, Los Angeles, and the New York Rangers where he had 347 career points (150g-197a) in 796 career games.

He is the main patriarch in a Boston hockey family dynasty as the father of Ryan Donato (Blackhawks), Jack Donato (Harvard), and Nolan (Providence ACHA) as well as the the uncle of the Farinacci brothers of New Jersey. John Farinacci plays for the P-Bruins and both he and his brother Anthony played for Delbarton, but we won’t hold that against him.

After his final year playing pro in 03-04, he jumped straight into the head coaching role at Harvard, where he would spend a remarkable 22 years at the helm amassing a record of 334-292-77, en route to becoming the winningest coach in Harvard history. While there he helped resurrect the program, leading them to 4 ECAC titles in ‘06, ‘15, ‘17 and ‘22, 4 Ivy League Championships while also winning The Beanpot in 2017. Nationally he led them to 8 NCAA tournament births and went to the final four with what sounds like his best team in 2017.

He has coached and developed players like Adam Fox, Alex Killorn, Ryan Donato, Jimmy Vesey, Alex Kerfoot, Jack Drury, Matt Coronato and John Marino. Marino, Fox, Donato, and Kerfoot were all on that 2017 team.

How’d He Wind up in NJ?

Donato stepped down this past season as head coach for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, the collegiate hockey landscape has drastically changed with NIL and the transfer portal making it difficult to attract and retain players at an Ivy League school – evidenced by their post Covid record. He passed the torch to Rab Rassey who was his assistant at Harvard for 6 years and was recently part of Big 10 powerhouse Michigan.

Often times a new coach will have some sort of connection to the current staff, players or team they are joining but I can’t seem to find an obvious direct connection. He didn’t play with Keefe (or coach), was a contemporary of Brodeur et. al. but was never a teammate. The best I can come up with is he is just simply well respected, has deep USA hockey ties and as a high profile college coach he would’ve been well versed in various front offices and likely had significant contact with Mehta and Birch to talk about players and potential draftees. As a USA hockey guy, I would also suspect he is connected to Mark Dennehy and that they have known each other for years.

Between him and MacLean, they will be joining Keefe on the offensive side of the puck, although neither had a specific role indicated in the press releases. I would make the assumption that he is filling an “associate head coach” type of role, similar to Travis Greene and Andrew Brunette to prep him for an NHL head coaching role in the near future (hopefully not too near future because that would mean things aren’t great).

This is a good hire to add another well respected voice in the room. Like I mentioned above, we don’t know exactly what his role will be so we will monitor that in the months to come. What do you think – are you into this hire? What value do you think he will bring?