Danton Cole

Danton Cole )b. January 10 1967 in Pontiac, Michigan, United States) is a retired professional right winger who played in the National Hockey League for the Winnipeg Jets, the Tampa Bay Lightning, the New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders and the Chicago Blackhawks.

Cole was drafted to the NHL by the Jets 123rd overall in the 1985 NHL Entry Draft. He would play four years with Michigan State before joining the professional ranks, splitting the 1989-90 between the Moncton Hawks of the AHL and the Winnipeg Jets. The same thing would happen the next season, before Cole established himself as a regular in Winnipeg.

Cole has been traded to the expansion team Tampa Bay Lightning in 1992, prior to the beginning of the season. He was thus part of the original Lightning roster and enjoyed in Tampa Bay his best season, with a career-high 43 points in 81 games in 1993-94. He spent the most part of the next season in Tampa before being traded to the New Jersey Devils, where he won the Stanley Cup.

From this point on, however, Cole saw his NHL time considerably diminished. He would play ten games with the New York Islanders and two with the Chicago Blackhawks, but spent the majority of the season in the International Hockey League. This season turned out to be the last where he would skate in the NHL.

Cole split the 1996-97 season between the Krefeld Pinguine of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga and the Grand Rapids Griffins of the IHL. He would play two full seasons with the Griffins and two games into the next, he announced his retirement.

Coaching career
In the season he retired, 1999-00, Cole was named assistant coach with the Griffins, a role he held for two seasons. He went to be head coach of the Muskegon Fury in 2001-02, which he led to the league championship; the next season, he was back in Grand Rapids, this time as head coach of the Griffins. He would spend two seasons and a half there.

Cole returned to the United Hockey League late into the 2004-05 season to coach the Motor City Mechanics. In 2006-07, he joined Bowling Green State University as assistant coach. He was named head coach at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 2007.