At TCS Live, there’s a different kind of value in hearing from someone who has lived the game from every angle: player, traveler, adapter, and now NHL coach.
Jeff Ulmer doesn’t just study the game. He’s navigated it across continents.
Before joining the San Jose Sharks as an Assistant Coach, Ulmer built a 19-year professional career that took him through more than 1,100 games across the NHL, AHL, KHL, SHL, Liiga, and DEL. Each stop came with its own version of hockey – different pace, structure, and expectations.
That lens now shapes how he coaches.
With the Sharks, Ulmer has taken on a role that lives in the details that quietly decide games, leading in-season player development, face-offs, and 4-on-4/overtime strategy, while supporting both special teams. These aren’t headline moments, but in the NHL, they’re often the difference between winning and chasing.
Before San Jose, his time with the Arizona Coyotes and Abbotsford Canucks helped build his reputation as a coach who connects experience to execution, someone who can take what players feel in the chaos of a shift and turn it into something teachable.
That’s what makes his session at TCS Live so compelling.
Ulmer isn’t bringing theory or trends. He’s bringing clarity to the moments where games turn: how players prepare for high-leverage situations, what actually makes a habit reliable under pressure, and why details like face-offs and overtime decisions carry outsized impact.
His perspective is grounded in a simple truth: The game rarely breaks in obvious ways. It tilts through small, repeatable moments.
A lost draw. A rushed decision in open ice. A missed opportunity when time and space briefly appear.
Ulmer has lived those moments as a player and now teaches them as a coach.
