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Tipp Drill

April 16, 2019, 9:19 AM ET [7 Comments]
GARTH'S CORNER
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While the Philadelphia Flyers, Florida Panthers and Los Angeles Kings have addressed their head coaching vacanies, the Buffalo Sabres continue to play the field.

On Tuesday, the Flyers finalized a lucrative five year, $25 million contract with Alain Vigneault. Last Monday, the Florida Panthers locked up Joel Quenneville for five years at a clip of $5.25M per copy. It is expected that the Kings are expected to lock up Todd McLellan to be their next head coach. Presumably, McLellan will sign for a five year term at an average annual value of $4+ million.


So, with the market of qualified candidates narrowing, who will be the next head coach of the Buffalo Sabres?

I have shared with you my short list:

Rikard Gronborg, Kevin, Dineen, Bob Boughner and Clark Donatelli.

I'm adding a long shot candidate to my list.

It's Dave Tippett.


Last June, the group responsible for delivering the NHL to Seattle hired Tippett as a senior adviser.


In his NHL coaching career, Tippett has coached more than 1,000 NHL games with the Dallas Stars and then Arizona Coyotes. Tippett left the Coyotes last summer after eight seasons.

Tippett is also one of only seven coaches in NHL history to coach his team to successive 50-win seasons, a goal he accomplished while coaching the Dallas Stars. The other six coaches to accomplish this feat are noteworthy:

Mike Babcock (Detroit), Scotty Bowman (Montreal), Tom Johnson (Boston), Mike Keenan (Philadelphia), Glen Sather (Edmonton), Fred Shero (Philadelphia).

Tippett is relatively young and still has abirning passion to coach in the NHL. Be it in Seattle or elsewhere.

Tippett is widely respected by his peers and is considered to be an intuitive hockey mind, a strict disciplinarian, and and innovator. Tippett will be a good fit with Jack Eichel & Associates.


In his role with the Seattle franchise, Tippett is assisting in overseeing all areas of the franchise and the possibility of him eventually being named coach of the team remains open.

“The challenge of trying to build a team from the foundation up is something not a lot of people get the chance to do,” Tippett told the Seattle Times. “That’s what makes it very intriguing to me.”

Tippett, 57, did not work with an NHL team during the 2017-18 season after spending the previous eight years as head coach of the Arizona Coyotes franchise. Before joining the Coyotes he coached the Dallas Stars for six seasons.

“There are a lot of times where you need somebody with some hockey experience, whether it be infrastructure like the dressing rooms, the training facilities, or putting together the groundwork of what a skeleton hockey staff would look like,” Tippett added.


Tippett was pursuing other coaching opportunities this past season.

The zillion dollar question still unanswered is will Tippett be named head coach of the Seattle franchise?



In December, the NHL Board of Governors approved the Seattle group as the league's 32nd franchise..


"Today is an exciting and historic day for our League as we expand to one of North America's most innovative, beautiful and fastest-growing cities," said NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman. "We are delighted to add David Bonderman, Tod Leiweke and the entire NHL Seattle group to the National Hockey League family. And we are thrilled that Seattle, a city with a proud hockey history that includes being the home for the first American team ever to win the Stanley Cup, is finally joining the NHL."

"We are pleased the NHL's Board of Governors unanimously approved Seattle's application for a franchise," said David Bonderman, NHL Seattle's majority owner. "I want to thank Commissioner Bettman and the Board for their endorsement."

Seattle's bid to become the NHL's 32nd franchise is fueled by a region's fan base that met the NHL's 10,000 season ticket deposit goal in just 12 minutes. The franchise currently has 32,000 depositors for season tickets.

NHL Seattle will begin its inaugural season in the fall of 2021 at the new Seattle Center Arena. Construction work on the arena project is underway.





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