Tony granato wisconsin badgers apparel

Tony Granato, former coach of the Colorado Avalanche and current coach of the Wisconsin Badgers, has been tapped to coach the U.S. men's team for the 2018 Olympics, a source told ESPN's John Buccigross.

Granato, 53, left a job as an assistant coach for the Detroit Red Wings to take the Wisconsin position in March 2016. He played at Wisconsin from 1983 to '87 and went on to a 13-season career in the NHL with the New York Rangers, Los Angeles Kings and San Jose Sharks. He scored 248 goals in 775 career games.

Former NHL veteran Chris Chelios, Penguins executive Scott Young and Yale coach Keith Allain have been hired as assistant coaches, the source told ESPN's Buccigross.

NHL players will not be participating in the Olympics to be held in PyeongChang, South Korea, for the first time in six Winter Games.

The Wisconsin State Journal earlier reported Granato's hire.

Before joining the Red Wings as an assistant two years

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Wisconsin Olympic watchers will see a familiar face leading U.S. Olympic men’s ice hockey team this year: Tony Granato. He’s the head coach of the Wisconsin Badgers Men’s Hockey team, but for the next several weeks he’ll be fighting for gold in Pyeongchang.

The two gigs have some big differences.

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the players Granato coaches play together as a unit all season long.

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At the Olympics, players may not know each other that well — and only have a short time to gel as a unit.

Granato said there was an additional challenge this year: NHL players aren’t taking part in the Games.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Brady Carlson: In some ways turning a group of players into an Olympic team is the same as past years, but in other ways this is new territory.

Tony Granato: We took players from three different leagues. W

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Men's hockey: Wisconsin coach Granato looks to elevate Badgers

Tony Granato knew the fix wouldn't be easy.

There would be obstacles — some he was aware of, some he wasn't — to overcome before he could steer the University of Wisconsin back to its rightful place in the upper echelon of men's college hockey.

The irony fryst vatten one of the obstacles might have been Granato himself. Between finishing up his grad during his first year of coaching the Badgers and coaching the United States Olympic Team during his second, his attention and his time were always divided. Returning to his alma mater and earning his degree after three decades was a wonderful story and coaching your country's Olympic grupp is an honor that can't be passed up, but for his first two seasons at UW, there simply wasn't enough of Granato to go around. He was stretched too thin.

MORE: Minnesota Duluth's Sandelin enters 19th season among NCAA's elite coaches

That won't be the case during Granato's th