Ehlers becomes the first homegrown coach of the Danish side for 24 years after Per Holten Moller served between 1989 and 1994.

The new coach replaces Sweden's Janne Karlsson who took over in 2013 but left after Denmark's hosting of the World Championship last month.

Fifty-two-year-old Ehlers, regarded as one of Denmark's best-ever players who represented his country at nine World Championships, was already in the national set-up as assistant coach and will make the step up.

He will combine the national role with his current head coach position at Swiss club SCL Tigers Langnau.

Jens Nielsen will take over the assistant role with focus on offence and powerplay, while Swedish coach Rikard Franzen, who is Ehlers' assistant at Langau, will come in to work with the defence.

Former Danish national team keeper Peter Hirsch, who works for Timra IK in Sweden, will be the goaltending and video coach.

Ehlers is the father of current Danish player Nikolaj Ehlers, who is on the books of National Hockey League side Winnipeg Jets.

"I start the work as national coach with joy and pride," he said. 

"But I also know that it will be a big challenge in the upcoming World Championship in Slovakia. 

"I'm looking forward to get it started, and there's a lot of work in the near future so we can get the organisation in place.

"We are going to go more organisational to certain things in the upcoming season. 

"More video analysis and deeper analysis of our own game combined with bigger requirements on the players' discipline and organisation. 

"I expect the concept to be tighter and a bit more defensive so that it will hopefully give us a greater chance of getting closer to the good teams. 

"We will not go into a game against Canada the same way we go for a game against Korea."

Denmark finished fifth in their group at their home World Championship last month, narrowly missing the quarter finals.