Coaching Candidate Profile: Dave Tippett

“The whole experience is really interesting, just working with different coaches and seeing their different ways of doing things,” he said. “There are definitely things you can learn, and obviously you get to meet players, interact with players and see their strengths and weaknesses.”

Dave Tippett has his usual bunch of undertalented (by NHL standards), hard-working players who’ve bought into their coach’s systems.

They know they can’t run and gun as well as other teams, they know they’re not built for big comebacks, so they stick to their guns. They keep pucks to the perimeter as much as possible, clog up the dangerous areas with traffic, and force the opposition to come through them if they hope to get a good look.

The discipline of every team who plays for Tippett is phenomenal. He’s got the right demeanor, he’s smart, and he knows how to succeed when you don’t necessarily have all that right tools.

Across all sports the best coaches are often extremists, petty and paranoid, their self-confidence rising and falling with each game. But Tippett has the humble, understated Canadian thing working. "I’m not an angry guy," he says. Win or lose, he eats lunch each day with his wife, Wendy, at their golf club’s restaurant. (Taco Tuesday is their favorite.) He doesn’t suffocate his players; he instituted a midnight road curfew but has never bothered to police it. Though he has developed his own statistical evaluation method, he’s not an analytics zealot. He’s not a screamer either. During a game a few years ago, he yelled — and his plate of false front teeth somehow dislodged and shot from his mouth. He caught it, like a bar of soap, and his players laughed.

In general, hockey coaches have few chances to affect the game. Unlike coaches in football, basketball and baseball, they can call plays only after a whistle or before a line shift. Tippett has even fewer chances than most because he can’t rely on his team’s talent; he has to find advantages so small as to be invisible, stuff from which he made an NHL career during the ’80s as a slow, small, undrafted center from the University of North Dakota by way of Saskatchewan.

He looks invisible now, addressing his team from a folding chair in the middle of the cramped locker room before practice. Tippett would prefer to stand, but he’d block the video screen. So he instructs from the trenches, inhabiting the world of his charges — "one of the pack," as video coach Steve "Petey" Peters says.

Dave Tippett is a fan-favorite in Phoenix for a lot of reasons. He is already one of the franchise’s most successful coaches despite heavy budgetary constraints and the constant distraction of the lack of ownership. He brought a lot of responsibility and accountability to the on-ice product, especially after the dysfunction that was Wayne Gretzky as an NHL head coach. While Phoenix has nowhere near the media market for hockey that Vancouver does, Tippett arguably has more experience dealing with distractions and keeping his team focused than any other coach available. He also is a very no-nonsense kind of guy that isn’t interested in making headlines. His blue-collar attitude fit well with a fanbase that is used to being the laughing stock of the league.

The team has switched gears significantly from Gretzky to Tippett, which is most apparent in the Coyotes’ draft selections over the past few years. Under Gretzky, offensively gifted players like Mikkel Boedker, Kyle Turris, and Viktor Tikhonov made the NHL roster immediately after being drafted, and in retrospect that stunted their development. With Tippett, the Coyotes have taken a much more conservative approach; players like Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Brandon Gormley, and the aforementioned Boedker have received more time in the minor and major-junior leagues to work on their games and develop into solid two-way players.

Tippett also is unafraid to keep players out of the lineup that don’t buy in 100% to his system. Part of the reason Turris plays for Ottawa now is that he wasn’t willing to play defense with the consistency Tippett wanted, even though Turris had offensive skills that were largely lacking from the Coyotes’ roster.

Tippett is definitely a "player’s coach"; he gives ice-time to whoever is having success, no matter what line he plays on. One example is Rob Klinkhammer, who had played a grand total of 16 games in the NHL before coming to the Coyotes’ organization. He started in the AHL, got called up to fill a roster spot lost to injury, scored in his first game, and remained with the big team for the rest of the season. He also keeps criticism of his players in-house, which helps with trust.

While OEL was pretty much a complete player out of the gate, other prospects have needed more time to improve an aspect of their game, particularly on the defensive side of the puck. One advantage of the Canucks that Tippett doesn’t really have in Phoenix is that the Canucks have a larger amount of high-end skill. Because Phoenix had to adhere so rigidly to their defensive scheme, Tippett was largely limited in how much time he could give players to "grow in" to their roles. More often than not, he’d have to either juggle line combinations, develop them in practice, or send them back down to the minors. He might not have that same challenge in Vancouver because the Canucks can overcome defensive lapses or growing pains in ways that Phoenix can’t.

I think so. The dynamic between Gillis and AV might’ve been strained too in the last while. Lots of respect there but maybe a time to get new voices. They need youngsters to play in 13-14 and AV is not forgiving of rookies’ mistakes. The team has now fundamentally changed in tone. 

I think Tippett can take what he’s given. I heard that after he made chicken salad from the scraps he had in Phoenix. He’s good with/ younger guys and the bottom half of his roster. Gillis needs an affirmation of his drafting and development so he will want a coach who can work with Gaunce, Jensen, Schroeder etc.

He likes someone who can adapt and develop, not be hidebound. He respects someone who’ll challenge him in a smart way. The biggest thing is that he’s not making moves to get another job after Vancouver. This is it for him. He’s secure in that, so he won’t be moved far off his plan.