The New Jersey Devils today named Alain Nasreddine and Geoff Ward as assistant coaches. They will join head coach John Hynes on the team’s staff.
Nasreddine, 39, joins the Devils organization after spending the past five seasons as an assistant coach under Hynes with the AHL’s Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. During that time, his defensive corps allowed the league’s fewest goals four times. The Penguins reached at least the second round of the Calder Cup Playoffs in each of his five seasons as assistant coach, and in 2010-11, Nasreddine helped lead the Penguins to the AHL’s Macgregor Kilpatrick Trophy as the league’s regular-season champions.
A defenseman, Nasreddine played most of his 15-year professional career in the American Hockey League, skating in 726 games with the Carolina Monarchs, Portland Pirates, Fredericton Canadiens, Quebec Citadelles, Hamilton Bulldogs, Bridgeport Sound Tigers and W-B/Scranton Penguins. He is also one of 17 players in AHL history with at least 100 Calder Cup Playoff games played (104), reaching the Calder Cup Finals with the Penguins in 2004 and 2008.
Nasreddine also played 74 NHL games with Chicago, Montreal, the N.Y. Islanders and Pittsburgh.
Ward, 53, was co-winner of the Louis A.R. Pieri Award as the AHL’s outstanding coach in 2003, when he led the Hamilton Bulldogs to the Calder Cup Finals. He later won a Stanley Cup as assistant coach of the Boston Bruins in 2011.
