Arizona Coyotes' Dave Tippett motivated to redeem Coyotes

Losses in backgammon, as rare as they may be, sting Dave Tippett.

When he and his wife, Wendy, were traveling to Hawaii on their honeymoon, they must have played hundreds of games on the flight to pass the time. Wendy won once, maybe twice, but that was all it took for Tippett to feel frustrated.

“He says, ‘Good losers are losers,’” Wendy said.

In golf, Tippett maneuvers from hole to hole with an up-to-date scorecard detailing his results.

Wendy couldn't care less about her proficiency, instead focusing on the fun she’s having. Tippett will ask how she did, and he’ll look at Wendy like she’s “from a foreign planet,” she said, because she has no clue.

“You don’t keep score even for yourself to see if you got better?” he’ll ask.

“No,” she’ll reply. “I don’t care.”

And as for board games, well, Wendy figures Tippett will participate only if he’s certain he’ll win.

“He doesn’t like to lose,” she summed up. “He’s not good at losing.”

With that much intensity invested into leisure activities, the competitiveness that pumps through Tippett when he’s perched behind the bench as head coach of the Coyotes is off the charts.

His passion isn't necessarily a sideshow production, punctuated with toothy grins, hoots and hollers and the occasional fist-pump. Instead, it's buried in his mannerisms, into who he is – arms crossed at 90-degree angles while he paces, a concentrated glance up to the video board to review the action and whispers into players’ ears while his finger motions instruction.

Profile: Coyotes coach Dave Tippett

“He may not be the most outwardly emotional coach you see behind the bench but when you deal with him every day in the locker room, he’s as competitive as any coach behind the bench and that rubs off on players,” Coyotes General Manager Don Maloney said. “They like him. They want to play for him.”

In his 20-plus years of coaching, in the National Hockey League and now-defunct International Hockey League, Tippett saw his determination tested more strongly than ever last season.

The Coyotes slumped to their worst showing for a full-length season since the franchise relocated to the Valley from Winnipeg in 1996, losing more than twice as many games as they won to rank second-to-last in the overall standings among 30 NHL teams for their third consecutive non-playoff finish.

Once the campaign mercifully came to a close, Tippett’s distaste for what went on no longer became a subtext in a postgame news conference as he seemed to suggest the possibility he would not return despite having three seasons remaining on a five-year contract.

“I can’t see myself doing that again,” Tippett said at the time.

And yet, after a five-month offseason that undoubtedly brought change to the Coyotes’ roster, albeit without any guarantee of its effectiveness, Tippett is in the midst of conducting the team's training camp and can be found at Gila River Arena leading practice sessions, preparing players and brainstorming lineups.

Tippett hasn’t reneged on his commitment because he has unfinished business, a redemption tour that not only restores the Coyotes to the competitive ranks of the league but also earns back the respect he and everyone else involved in last season’s operation might have lost.

The best way to achieve both is sticking with the philosophy that’s guided him throughout his life.

“If you’re going to play,” he said, “you might as well win.”

Dave Tippett on Coyotes' future:

A respected history

Tippett joined the Coyotes in 2009 following a seven-season stint in Dallas with the Stars, his first head coaching gig in the NHL after three years as an assistant with the Los Angeles Kings. Under Tippett, the Stars made five playoff appearances (one season was lost to a lockout) and secured two division titles.

He took over for Wayne Gretzky only months after the Coyotes had been dropped into bankruptcy court and were in the early stages of a four-year search for ownership. And despite the upheaval that swirled away from the rink, the Coyotes thrived between the boards.

In his first season at the helm, Tippett spurred the Coyotes to a 50-win season and the team’s first playoff series in eight years to nab the Jack Adams Award as the league’s best coach.

Only two seasons later, he had the Coyotes in the Western Conference final as Pacific Division champions.

“I used to write it on the board all the time. ‘Winning is fun,’” he said. “ … Your best memories ever when you think about it in sports could be a game you won, could be a championship you won. Those are your best memories.”

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The 54-year-old native of Saskatchewan, Canada, spent parts of 11 seasons in the NHL as a player, toiling as a depth winger for the Whalers, Capitals, Penguins and Flyers. In 1992, he earned a silver medal with Canada at the Winter Olympics.

He also captured a NCAA title in 1982 with the University of North Dakota. Before then, he played junior hockey for the Prince Albert Raiders, winning a slew of championships under coach Terry Simpson amid what Tippett remembers as a “win-at-all-costs” culture.

Tippett actually started coaching while he was still a player with the Houston Aeros in the IHL in 1994. The next year, Tippett retired as a player but worked as an assistant before being promoted during the season to head coach.

He became a John Wooden disciple, reading all of the famed UCLA basketball coach’s books and even meeting Wooden a couple of times while Tippett coached in Los Angeles.

“That’s kind of what motivates him,” said Wendy, who’s been with Tippett since the two met at North Dakota 33 years ago. “The way he lives his life (is) to be a good human being to other human beings, and the winning will just come.”

In 1999 while doubling as coach and general manager, he led Houston to a championship.

The trophy was passed around on the ice after the victory and once it reached Tippett, his youngest daughter, Natalie, began to cry.

“I’ve never seen Daddy that happy,” she said. “I’ve never seen Daddy smile like that.”

Much of last season elicited a different reaction from Tippett.

Dave Tippett on Coyotes' roster, young players:

A trial, to put it nicely

After he’d conclude his postgame news conferences, a grim statue of frustration, people would tell him, “You look miserable.”

But every blow – whether it’d be a narrow loss in overtime or a lopsided defeat seemingly over in the first period – probably felt like the worst one yet because Tippett hadn’t experienced this much adversity in his coaching career and he certainly didn’t expect it to become the norm by December.

The Coyotes weren’t active architects the summer before, making only subtle tweaks to a group that had already disappointed the previous season by missing out on a playoff invitation by two points.

That gap widened amid inconsistent goaltending, shaky defending and an underwhelming offense – so much so that by the league’s trade deadline in March, the team exchanged vital pillars in defensemen Keith Yandle and Zbynek Michalek and center Antoine Vermette for mostly prospects and draft picks. The subtractions signaled the beginning of a rebuilding process that management hopes will have the Coyotes vying for a Stanley Cup in three to four years.

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“He was used to coaching good teams and then all of a sudden going through a season like that, it was tough for him,” Michalek said. “He doesn’t deserve that. He works hard every single day.”

With a depleted group, the Coyotes limped through the remainder of the season, relying on minor-leaguers to fill in the holes, but Tippett’s dedication never wavered. He prepared for every game as if the team was still very much in contention and even managed to project a positive presence in front of his players in the dressing room.

“Tip has a rougher, kind of stoic kind of personality and yet at times as our leader and our coach, he showed how he’d pick his energy up to pick us up,” captain Shane Doan said.

At home, though, Wendy could tell how trying the season really was for Tippett – the hardest since the two have been married and easily the most difficult in his coaching career.

“Not even close,” Tippett said.

Her respect for her husband grew because even though the team wasn’t exactly equipped to start climbing the standings, he wasn’t giving up.

Tippett was the same coach, the one who commits 20 hours a day to the Coyotes, shows up to the rink even when he’s sick and sometimes drives in silence even when Wendy's beside him, she said, so he can contemplate line combinations.

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“I would have been frustrated with that, and he’s like, ‘They hired me to do the best I can with what I have, and that’s what I’m going to do,’” Wendy said.

Instead of vacationing as soon as the season ended, Tippett remained tethered to the Coyotes and didn’t unplug until after the team’s prospect development camp in mid-July. He studied game footage, traveled to the NHL draft and monitored the moves made in free agency.

“I thought it was very important to stay very attached to where things were, more to give myself the confidence that we are going to move in the right direction,” Tippett said.

Since the Coyotes had already decided by that time to try to compete for a playoff spot next season instead of bracing for a mounting pile of losses like some rebuilding teams do, much of the assurance Tippett needed came from ownership.

Dave Tippett: Growth for new season

Goal remains playoffs this season

The group has been in charge of the franchise since 2013 but updated its look last season, welcoming Andrew Barroway after he purchased a 51 percent stake of the franchise in December. This past June, Barroway stepped down from his majority role but still remains the largest shareholder and governor of the team.

“I think there’s going to be better direction there, just more stability,” Tippett explained. “They’ve had some growing pains like everything else, and I think they’re going to get that stabilized which is positive.”

Tippett also considered the players and how they might be affected if he chose to leave the organization. He particularly thought about Doan, the face of the team who has remained with the franchise since 1995 despite bouts of uncertainty and opportunities for more money and success elsewhere.

“Doaner’s given so much to this organization. It’d be awful selfish for me to walk away,” Tippett said. “But I still stand by what I said. I don’t want to go through that again. I’m in it to win.”

A transformation into a Stanley Cup contender is unrealistic, but Tippett has still found sources of optimism.

He has confidence goaltender Mike Smith will rebound from a poor performance in 2014-15 to be a game-changer. The re-acquisition of Michalek and trade for defenseman Nicklas Grossmann should also help the Coyotes protect their end of the ice better.

“When I knew that he was coming back, it was a big part of why I wanted to be back because I knew he was back,” Michalek said. “I enjoy playing for him, and I know he gets the best out of me.”

And then there’s the youth projected to land on the roster, headlined by wingers Max Domi and Anthony Duclair. Their skill set certainly has the potential to up the speed and talent of an offense hungry for more production.

“If I would have walked away at the end of the season and just stewed on it for a couple months, you never know where I would have gone,” Tippett said. “But the best thing for me was to jump in and figure out how we’re going to start getting better, so then I started to get enthused about how to fix things.”

Repairing the on-ice product also likely refurbishes the reputation of the entire franchise, which has morphed from admirable overachievers to overlooked bottom feeders.

Following their unexpected yet impressive trip to the Western Conference final in 2012, the Coyotes were picked to win the 2014 Stanley Cup by one ESPN writer.

Obviously, they didn’t and many publications slotted them outside of the playoff picture for 2014-15.

The predictions for this season are just as unflattering if not more.

“Right now, nobody would even think of picking them,” Tippett said.

Actually, that might not really bother the Coyotes.

They’ve done some of their best work when they were discounted, capitalizing on an underdog mentality to sometimes surprise the league with their commitment to an all-hands-on-deck style.

After all, respect is important but it’s also an accessory to a much more meaningful prize: a journey that marries the excitement of winning with the camaraderie born along the way.

That’s what Tippett is searching for here with the Coyotes.

“If he got Coach of the Year every year, it would mean nothing to him,” Wendy said. “It has to be a team thing.”

His desire to win is personal and simultaneously a gift for everyone accompanying him on an 82-game summit of pregame speeches and postgame handshakes.

It’s not only his legacy at stake but the memories that will years from now color his time with this team that matter.

And that’s why Tippett wants to win, to make those memories count.

“You can tell when you win, everybody’s happy to win,” he said. “The relationships, when you do win, of that group of people you’re around, you’ll always have that.”

Reach the reporter at sarah.mclellan@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8276. Follow her at twitter.com/azc_mclellan.