During the first few days of an NHL training camp, when teams have 50-plus players involved in groups, a significant number of head coaches prefer to sit in the stands.
Not Dave Tippett.
“I like it down there,” said the native of Moosomin, Saskatchewan who played a total of 721 games with Hartford, Washington, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia before becoming a coach.
“I like being as close as I can be to a player. I’ve always been on the ice,” he said.
If nothing else, it’s the best place to get a read on whether they’re buying what you are selling.
“When you have change like this, the coaching staff has to come in and really dictate how you want things to go, the mentality of your team and the identity of your team.
“I’ve talked to most of our core players. They’re on the same page as we are. When you have a whole new staff in place you have to set the tone early.”
It’s early days. They haven’t lost a game yet. But there has been buy-in.
“The first impressions are pretty good actually,” said the former NHL Coach of the Year who has delivered very detailed, demanding high-paced practices designed to install an identity from the git-go.
“After that first day, I came off the ice and told the coaches that I was really enthused just by the spirit, the emotion and the speed of some players. There are a lot of players in there who want to win. There’s a real synergy with what we’re doing here right now.
“When you look at some things in the summer and put the players names on the whiteboard, it’s one thing. But it’s something else to get out there on the ice with them and see their reactions to things in different situations.
“It’s different than on the video. It kind of brings it front and centre for you. You get to know players and what they do and how they react in certain situations. It’s getting to know people the best you can before making decisions on them. That’s a big part of my job right now.”
Many people picture Tippett as being a defence-first, work ethic type of coach and he’s definitely going to start there because the Oilers are going to miss the playoffs again unless they can dramatically reduce their goals against.
But it’s not like he’s putting the whip to their backs with them chained to the oars.
Defenceman Adam Larsson is probably the perfect example of that.
“I watched him play in Edmonton and I watched him play at the World Championships. I told him ‘I want the World Championships guy.’ It was the first time it looked like he had a smile on his face. It looked like he was having fun.”
The Edmonton Larsson, he said, never looked like he was having fun.
“And you can see it right now. He’s smiling and he’s enjoying it. He looks relaxed with the puck.”
Tippett said there are aspects of this training camp that remind him of his first.
“My first year at training camp as a head coach I was awfully excited. I had a real veteran team there in Dallas.
“You want to set a tone in training camp and that part is the same.”
Asked after Friday’s first on-ice day of camp what kind of a tone he was trying to establish, Tippett answered the question succinctly.
“Intensity and work ethic, both attacking and defending. Five up. Five back,” he said.
And it’s been five up, five back with no let-up and Tippett says get used to it because that’s the identity he wants day-in-day-ot, game-in-game-out. He is intent on selling the offensive players on transitioning into defensive players it’s going in one direction and the defensive players into transiting into offensive players when it’s going the other.
“The different part for me is because for the last couple of years I wasn’t coaching. All of a sudden there was a unique situation here with Kenny Holland and the players we have,” he said of the new general manager and the likes of Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.
“I told the players. Kenny Holland coming here was a big draw for me. I was playing golf in Arizona. I was doing fine. This kind of tweaked me,” said the coach who starts the season with a 553-413-28-120 record in 1,114 games divided between six seasons in Dallas and eight in Arizona where he missed the playoffs the last five prior to taking a two-year gig helping set up expansion Seattle.
So he has his own motivation.
“I’m excited to be here. I’m enjoying these days. I like some of the parts to this team. There’s an excitement to our group and I’m part of that excitement.”
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
