Edmonton Oilers hire Dave Tippett as new head coach

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It is tough to be a coach in the National Hockey League, and harder yet to be behind the bench of a Canadian team. It is more challenging still to be the skipper in Edmonton, where the Kraken lurks in the undercurrent and pretty much devours everyone that comes along.

Todd McLellan and Ken Hitchcock were the most recent crackerjacks whose proficiency elsewhere was skewed during brief tenures with the underperforming Oilers. Only a fellow who is fearless or remarkably confident would wish to step in.

Welcome to northern Alberta, Dave Tippett.

Within minutes of being introduced as Edmonton’s new head coach on Tuesday, he fielded a question about his perceived reputation for being overly defensive-minded. A little while later, he was asked whether such an approach would lead to Connor McDavid receiving fewer chances to display his otherworldly offensive skills.

That is the way it goes in the Oilers’ schizophrenic orbit: Yes, the defence needs major repairs. Now, please don’t change anything.

Tippett handled the queries as smoothly as Ozzie Smith scooped up grounders. He has coached 14 years in the NHL, his past eight in the desert in Arizona. In his first season in Phoenix, he guided a team with little previous success into the playoffs at the same time the cash-starved organization was having difficulty meeting its payroll.

By comparison, the Oilers are an exemplar of stability.

Tippett has coached more than 1,100 games in the NHL and has a winning record, even though the Coyotes were nearly always short on everything.

“In Arizona, we were not high on talent," Tippett said during a news conference at Rogers Place. "We had to win with character and grit.

“There are a couple of things I believe in. No matter who you have on your team, you try to maximize the performance of every individual and give them a better chance to succeed. There is never an excuse not to win.”

The Oilers have reached the postseason once in the past 13 years. Tippett is Edmonton’s eighth coach in a decade but expects to be here long-term, even if the footing is as slippery as a funhouse hatch.

“There is nothing about this job that would scare you off,” he says. “I think there is a lot of upside to this team. There are lots of pieces to build around beyond McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.

“I think it is going to be a fun ride.”

Tippett was fired after the 2016-17 season when the Coyotes missed the playoffs for a fifth straight year. He took one year off and pretty much ignored hockey while he baked on a golf course in the Arizona heat.

This past year, he accepted a position as a senior adviser with Seattle’s expansion team, which fuelled his coaching itch. When Edmonton general manager Ken Holland called early in the month, he was supremely interested.

Tippett met with Holland in California for more than four hours only days after the long-term Red Wings executive joined the Oilers on May 7. From then on, Tippett remained the No. 1 choice, even as more than a dozen other prospective coaches were evaluated.

“Dave was always the leading candidate in my mind,” Holland said. “Experience is a big thing with me. The waters can be choppy in the NHL. You need a guy who is steady on the rudder behind the bench. You need someone who has been through the wars in the NHL.”

Tippett is 57 and played in 721 games in the NHL with four teams before embarking on a coaching career. His first position as a head coach came with the Houston Aeros of the International Hockey League. He also spent three seasons as an assistant with the Los Angeles Kings under Andy Murray before being hired in Dallas in 2002.

Teams coached by him in Dallas and Arizona had 97 or more points during the regular season eight times and won 50 games or more on three occasions. He won the Jack Adams Award as the league’s best coach in 2010 after leading Phoenix to a 50-25-7 record in his first season.

“When I first took the job in Arizona, people said there was no chance we would do anything,” Tippett said.

He says he knows the Pacific Division and anticipates significant improvement in the Oilers immediately. He also expects there to be a lot of shuffling of the roster in the next few months.

“Come training camp, we are going to have a very competitive team," Tippett says.

He prefers to keep McDavid and Draisaitl on the same line together as the Oilers add scoring depth and shore up their leaky defence. McDavid and Draisaitl combined for 91 goals and 221 points this past season.

The Oilers missed the playoffs for the second straight year and set a chain of events in motion that found Tippett seated at the front of the room with replicas of the organization’s five Stanley Cups.

The quest is about to begin again.