Samoskevich's coaching journey added a new stop in Columbus

It’s been a big summer for the Samoskevich family.

On June 17, Mackie Samoskevich won the Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers.

Exactly one week later, Maddy Samoskevich – Mackie’s twin sister – was drafted by Vancouver in the fifth round (39th overall) of the PWHL Draft.

On July 2, Melissa Samoskevich – the eldest of the three siblings, all of whom grew up in Sandy Hook, Connecticut – took the ice as a guest coach for Blue Jackets development camp, presented by Bread Financial.

Late in the spring, Melissa got a call from Rick Nash, inviting her to Columbus to help coach their top prospects. Currently an assistant coach for the University of Delaware women’s hockey team and a member of the NHL Coaches Association and the NHLCA Females Coaches Program, Samoskevich knew it was an opportunity too good to pass up.

“It was an awesome week,” Samoskevich said. “Just learning and being around these guys, they lead with excellence. I think that's special, and you crave being around it, the energy.”

Hockey has been woven into the fabric that makes Samoskevich who she is.

Ironically enough, though, hockey was not love at first sight.

“(When) my dad first got me into playing hockey, I wanted a figure skating dress,” Samoskevich said. “They would make fun of me for it.”

Going on the ice for the first time at just 3 years old, Samoskevich grew up playing on local teams in Connecticut. She is five years older than the younger twins, Mackie and Maddy. The hockey bug infected them, too; Mackie played college hockey at the University of Michigan for two seasons before turning pro, while Maddy attended Quinnipiac University – just like her older sister – for five years.

As you might expect with highly competitive siblings, there was plenty of support for one another, along with the occasional rivalry moment.

“Maddy and Mackie, just being twins, they would get into fights here and there,” Samoskevich said. “But even still, (they were) always trying to make each other better.”

When Samoskevich reached high school, she moved to the Midwest to attend Shattuck St. Mary’s, a prestigious prep school in Faribault, Minn., renowned for developing some of the top hockey players in the country. Just like their older sister, both Maddy and Mackie attended Shattuck for high school.

After winning a gold medal for the U.S. Under-18 Women’s National Team at the 2015 U-18 World Championships, Samoskevich played four years at Quinnipiac, captaining the team her junior and senior year. Her 109 career points rank sixth all-time in Bobcats program history.

But the conclusion of her collegiate hockey career left her at a crossroads.

When Samoskevich finished at Quinnipiac in 2019, there was no stable league for professional women’s hockey. Samoskevich continued with the national team, winning gold at the 2019 Women’s World Championship, before stints in the Swedish Women’s Hockey League and with the Connecticut Whale in the now defunct National Women’s Hockey League.

“I graduated at a tough time,” Samoskevich said. “We just didn't have a steady league yet. “There were two pathways for girls coming out of college – I actually chose coaching right away, and then playing was kind of like another thing I did. But my income was (from) coaching.”

While playing with the Whale, Samoskevich served as an assistant coach for the Penn State women’s hockey team – not before turning down a coaching position with her alma mater.

“My coach asked me if I want to coach. I told her no, because I saw how much work she did and how much noise she dealt with,” Samoskevich said with a laugh. “And I was just like, ‘No, I don't want to do that.’”

But there was one small issue with that, one of the unfortunate realities of the professional women’s hockey landscape at the time.

“I needed a job,” Samoskevich said. “Jeff Kampersal at Penn State called me. He coached me at the U-18 national team. He's like, ‘Would you be interested in this?’ And I was like, ‘Maybe I am. Let me give it a go.’”

After studying to become a teacher at Quinnipiac, coaching was a natural fit. And despite Samoskevich’s intrigue with figure skating as a child and her skepticisms about coaching as a young adult, there’s no other path she could envision herself on at this point.

“I really don't know what else I would do,” Samoskevich said. “Like, there are some days where the job is hard. There’s perks to a 9-to-5 job, but there’s perks to this job. … I don't know what else I would do.”

Samoskevich eventually rejoined Quinnipiac as a director of hockey operations in 2022-23 and was an assistant coach for two years with Princeton. She’s coached her fair share of all-stars – including the first overall pick in the 2024 PWHL Draft, Sarah Fillier – but her favorite student is her little sister. After following in her older sister’s footsteps through high school and college, Maddy will get an opportunity that Melissa never got – the opportunity to play professional hockey.

In addition, Samoskevich will still shoot Mackie a text here and there with little things she notices about his game. But what Samoskevich learned on the ice last week at CBJ development camp will undoubtedly be shared with Maddy, who will take her talents to Vancouver to continue her playing career.

“Maddy, she's just a girl,” Samoskevich said. “We had almost an identical path from Shattuck to Quinnipiac. I’ve been in her shoes, so it's easier to kind of give her advice and just talk her through things.”

Samoskevich was one of a handful of female coaches that assisted at development camps around the NHL this summer. Though she never got the opportunity to play professional hockey long-term, she finds these camps to be a pretty solid substitute.

“I feel so lucky that I got this week under my belt,” Samoskevich said. “Seeing how an NHL club runs – it’s different than women's collegiate hockey, but we're all talking the same language.”

Though the NHL Coaches Association allows her an opportunity to make the jump into the men’s hockey stratosphere, Samoskevich is excited to join the Delaware program as an assistant coach. The team’s inaugural Division I season is set to begin this fall.

“We’re starting a brand-new program at Delaware, and I plan to be there for a while,” Samoskevich said. “We just want to grow an amazing program and an amazing culture … just something special.”