Now that the Dallas Stars have, once again, failed to advance past the first round of the playoffs during Dave Tippett's tenure as head coach, the media is getting the knives to out to be sharpened.Does Dave Tippett deserve to be fired? In my opinion, NO!
Look at the Stars roster, which is full of softies like Mike Ribeiro, Eric Lindros, and Darryl Sydor, plus a whole whack of Scandinavian finesse players who don't possess a lot of offensive talent. Despite this rather weak looking roster, the Dallas Stars played an exceptional passive-defensive system and managed to rally and take the Canucks to a 7th game in their series after being down 3-1.
Special Teams? The Stars were 11th on the PK and 7th on the Power Play, which usually is a reflection of good coaching. The Stars were also the 2nd best team (behind Detroit) in shots against, and were extremely tough to score on.
Looking at Tippett's coaching record, he's certainly got an incredible track record ... during the regular season:
YEAR GM W L T OT WIN% PLAYOFFS
02-03 82 46 17 15 4 0.677 - Lost in round 2
03-04 82 41 26 13 2 0.591 - Lost in round 1
05-06 82 53 23 0 6 0.683 - Lost in round 1
06-07 82 50 25 0 7 0.652 - Lost in round 1
The Stars have done exceptionally well under Tippett's tenure during the regular season, but have won only one playoff round under his guidance. Given how two of those playoff losses were in a measly five games, one could conclude that Tippett doesn't have the right stuff to win in the playoffs.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-25-2007 @ 3:27PM
JMarsh said...
Tippet doesn't put the puck in the net nor stop the pucks, maybe these knee jerk reactionary teams need to look at their depth in THE PLAYERS rather than the man leading the charge...Marty Turco is a regular season hero, and a complete playoff zero
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4-25-2007 @ 4:36PM
Greg Wyshynski said...
Anyone claiming Marty Turco is a playoff zero after this series must have been watching the Food Network for the last two weeks. Which makes sense, considering how hard it is to find VERSUS and how enchanting that one Food Network hostess is, the one with the big jugs who makes the Italian food.
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4-25-2007 @ 6:10PM
Joe Pelletier said...
Tippett did a great job as coach, and shouldn't be fired. But one incident did send off alarm bells for me. During period 2, game 7 when the Stars completely lost their composure, so too did Tippett. Had he kept his cool and tried to be more of calming influence at that particular point in time, perhaps they could have rode out that incredible storm.
Joe Pelletier
legendsofhockey.blogspot.com
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4-27-2007 @ 12:41PM
IcePrincess said...
Tip doesn't deserve to be fired.
Army needs to be run off first..........
Any word on the Modano contract buy-out I keep hearing about? That loser needs to GO AWAY.
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7-16-2007 @ 6:58PM
ddokken said...
Dave Tippett is my uncle and he is a steller coach as well as a human being. The biggest problem is that dallas is full of old players who can't keep up during the playoffs. Gueran didn't perform in last seasons playoffs and madono didn't perform in the year's playoffs. Marty Turco gave it his all, he just wasn't given the defensive support he needed.
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