Orson Welles, Bill Walton & Disco Dan

Right now, Dan Bylsma is hockey's Orson Welles. He'd rather follow the career arc of Bill Walton.

Hey, there's a whole lot worse than being compared to Orson Welles. He directed, produced, and starred in what many believe is the greatest film ever made, 1941's Citizen Kane . Welles was 25 years old at the time.

The thing about Welles is, where do you go from perfection? "It is vastly agreed upon that Orson Welles never made a film as good as his debut," writes historian Rua Fay at Cinemasters . "Every project that came afterwards was permanently doomed to be in the shadow of Citizen Kane."

Bylsma was the NHL's youngest coach, 38, when he guided the Pittsburgh Penguins to the 2009 Stanley Cup. A mid-season coaching replacement, Bylsma had coached all of 25 regular season NHL games.

To date, he's never reached that pinnacle again. Like the famed director, Bylsma has produced a lot of good stuff; division titles, a trip to the conference final, a Jack Adams award in 2011 for getting the best from an injured Penguins team.

Franchises and their fan bases being notoriously fickle, Bylsma was ushered out of Pittsburgh after six season. At his second coaching stop in Buffalo, he was asked to shuffle off after just two years.

Basketball legend Bill Walton, who died on May 27, book-ended his playing career beautifully. Success came early, two NCAA titles in college at UCLA (under Bylsma's coaching idol, John Wooden). Walton not only reached the playoffs for the first time in just his third NBA season, he won the championship with the 1977 Portland Trailblazers.

But then, injuries and other circumstances prevented Walton from even reaching the playoffs again until nine years later as a member of the Boston Celtics. Filling the 6th man role, he'd help Boston to the title in 1986, and retire the following season.

Bylsma Gets Rewrite On His Script

Bylsma would like to recreate that career arc of peak, valley, peak at his brand new head coaching stop with the Seattle Kraken.

I'm reminded of something Bylsma said . "One of the exciting things about coming (here) is there was going to be a significant amount of changes, a significant amount of growth and a young team, a team that’s going to grow and develop together."

That was the coach speaking, not about the Kraken in 2024, but in 2017 when hired by the Sabres. Two seasons later, Buffalo players were reportedly fed up with Byslma, the same rumors which swirled around the firing of former Kraken coach Dave Hakstol.

Were stories in either case true? Don't know. What we do know is, neither coach's exit was the happy Hollywood ending these men had hoped for. Now the man nicknamed "Disco Dan" gets a chance to rewrite his script with a new cast of characters in Seattle.

The show premieres in October at Climate Pledge Arena.