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NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE MEDIA CONFERENCEMay 10, 2012Dave TippettTHE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, I'm David Keon of the National Hockey League's public relations department. I'd like to welcome you to today's call as we prepare for the opening of the Western Conference Final which begins Sunday evening in Phoenix. We welcome Phoenix Coyotes coach, Dave Tippett. Dave is in his third season behind the Coyotes' bench, and led the team to a 42‑27‑13 record, first place in the pacific division, and third seed in the Western Conference. Phoenix defeated the Chicago Blackhawks in six games in the first round and advanced to the Conference Final for the first time by knocking off the Nashville Predators in five games. We thank Dave for taking the time to join us and answer your questions. Q. The Kings are a different team from the one you faced back in the regular season. Your team looks a lot different in a lot of ways from the team that we saw here several times. If you could talk about and address that, what you see in that regard? DAVE TIPPETT: I don't know if they're that much different. Every team, as the season goes on, you try to build your game, you try to push your team to be peaking at the right time.  We hadn't played them in the regular season since February, but if you look at what L.A. and the push they put on down the stretch, and we had to put a push on down the stretch just to make the playoffs, that's just a byproduct of teams getting ready to play in the playoffs and earning the right to be in the playoffs. You hope your team is‑‑ everybody is playing as well as possible going into the playoffs. I think you've seen that from both teams. Q. Could you give me a big picture view of your coaching philosophy, particularly how it pertains to your hockey Canada experience with Dave King there and Sean Burke there and yourself? How much did what you learned coming through that National program help you become the coach that you are and develop the philosophy that you have in terms of how the game should be played? DAVE TIPPETT: Well, you and I both know Dave very well. When I first started to play for Dave in 1982 at a world championship tournament, it brought light to the fact that it wasn't just about going on and putting your skates on and going out and playing. There was preparation that was involved in the game. Preparation on how your team was going to play. And there was a plan for success. How you were going to have a chance to win. That preparation has certainly stuck with me. I think Sean Burke would tell you the same thing, playing for Dave. The three of us have combined together here, and hopefully I have a lot more knowledge about the game now because of coaches like Dave from 1982. We collaborate on everything we do. We take pride in the fact that we want our team to be well prepared and have a plan for success. Whatever excuses there may be on ice, off the ice, we want to take as many of those away as possible and allow our players to do the best they can to try to be successful. Coaching staffs, you look at every staff in the NHL, it's always a collaboration of ideas, and there is a trust factor that has to go into those ideas. In our group, Dave with his experience and his knowledge of the game, his opinions are always very valued as well as Jim Playfair, John Anderson, and Sean Burke's. The philosophy of teaching the game, and the tactical part of the game and preparation for the game are something that's been instilled for a long time. Q. There was a lot of ownership chatter this year, just as there was a lot of ownership chatter last year. How have you been able to not let it be a distraction this year? It looks like he's done a better job of this team with not letting it be a distraction. Is that fair to say? DAVE TIPPETT: The distractions were less this year. I thought the NHL did a very good job of keeping it away from us. The thing about last year, we were going through a situation where it looked like there was an owner and then lawsuits, and gold water groups. There was a lot of stuff going on that we didn't have to deal with this year. I think ultimately what's happened is we've become very hardened to it. Our group has always used it as a motivating factor, not a crutch. This year as much as it was still around, it seemed less infectious on us. Q. Would you talk a little bit about Mike Smith, who a lot of us in the East don't see very much? Also, the work that Sean Burke, who a lot of us in the East have seen during his career, has done with him? DAVE TIPPETT: Well, Mike Smith has come in and with our situation losing Bryzgalov last year, there were a lot of question marks about our goaltending coming into the season. I had history with Mike in Dallas. Thought he was a player that if he got the opportunity could really flourish. I thought the relationship between him and Sean Burke would be a very good one. Both of them are similar kinds of goalies and have gone through similar issues in their career. Mike came in, was looking for an opportunity. We had an opportunity to give. And the work he and Sean have done together has given us a very, very good player. I really believe through this year he's evolved into one of the elite goaltenders in the league and certainly that's been on display in the playoffs. Q. He looks more and more confident every time he goes out on the ice. How important is confidence for a goaltender, especially one who hasn't necessarily had some earlier in his career? DAVE TIPPETT: We always talk about confidence is earned. If you look at the year he's had and the work he's put in, he's earned that confidence. I would second that in the fact not only is he confident in his own play, he's earned the trust and the confidence of the players in front of him. So when a goaltender can do that, it leads to a very competitive team. Q. Despite your ranking, you're often seen as an underdog in every series. Now that you're the 3rd seed playing the 8 seed, a lot of people still have you at the underdog. Could this be used to your advantage? DAVE TIPPETT: Hasn't bothered us much yet, so we'll find where we are. It was very competitive all year in our division. I think we won the last couple of games of the regular season to get the third seed, which turned out to be very important to us for home ice advantage. But our team, I think, a lot of people always view us as a smaller market team that we're in the hunt, but nobody views us as a contender. I look at our game as kind of evolved the last part of the regular season into the playoffs, where we have the confidence we can beat anybody, and we recognize that we'll probably always be looked at as the underdog, but that hasn't changed for us in the last three years. So we're comfortable in that mode. Q. Can you just tell me a little bit about how you feel about Ray Whitney's play this year and how successful he's been at this age and what he's brought to your team? DAVE TIPPETT: He's been an unbelievable player for us. The thing that's you've seen from him throughout his whole career, his skill, his knowledge of the game, the ways he affects the game, but the one thing that doesn't come across enough and you have to have the ability at his age to do is his passion to play the game. He loves coming to the rink. He loves the competition. I've seen a lot of players as they got older, they kind of lose some of that passion, and it's still alive and strong in Ray. He brings that attitude to the rink every day. It's a great example for our younger players. He's obviously been a very strong player for us right from the start of the year. Q. What kind of leadership are you talking about the leadership that Shane Doan brings to the dressing room? DAVE TIPPETT: Well, Shane is one of those guys that leads by example. He's one of the hardest working players you're going to find in practice. He goes into every game with preparation and detail into every game is at the forefront of what you want any captain to be. You take the hockey side of it as well as who he is as a person and how he lives his life. He's just a stand‑up guy that every teammate will tell you is a wonderful person. So you combine those two, strong player, good person, and you get a great leader. Q. Just curious, the league has only announced the schedule for the first two games. Does that bother you in terms of planning? Or with such a short flight distance, not dealing with long flights and time zone changes, is it just kind of facts of life in the NHL and busy arenas that have a lot of things going on? DAVE TIPPETT: Yeah, I think with Los Angeles' situation with the two basketball teams playing and the Kings playing, I think there will be a lot of read and react here. We have kind of an idea when we think things are going to go, and there is a plan in place for that. But you always have to be able to adjust. We were preparing probably to start Saturday. Now it looks like possibly Sunday. So our preparations will stay the same. Just read and react, and hopefully we get a schedule soon that we can put things in place and know exactly where we're going to be at and when we're going to be there. Q. I think a lot of people would like to know, but all the announcements are Sunday‑Tuesday at this point? DAVE TIPPETT: Yeah, that's what we'll go with. I think probably the L.A. situation depends heavily on the basketball schedule at the Staples Center from what I'm hearing. Q. You were talking about Mike Smith earlier. Once you get this deep into the playoffs, do you think a goaltender plays against the other team's goaltender? There is a lot of talk about Quick being great and Mike Smith being great. Do you think the goaltenders look and say if I can help play this guy, outplay this guy, our team's going to win the game? DAVE TIPPETT: No, the same question was asked at the start of the last series with us with Rene, and I saw a video of both goaltenders. They were both asked that, and they said no, they were concerned about stopping the puck at their end. I think you get focused on what your team has to do to be successful. I think winning is a big part of that. But Mike is a guy who focuses on how our team plays in front of them. We talk a lot about giving him the best opportunity to be good. To do that, we have to be strong in front of him. I think if you asked Mike, it would be very much he's concentrating on what he has to do. Obviously, you have a guy on the other end that's taking care of his stuff. But from my end, I think Mike doesn't spend much time worrying about their goalie. He spends time worrying about stopping the puck for us. Q. Mike plays deep in the net, as goalie as Lundqvist does. Is that because of his size? Lots of goalies play way out in front whereas Lundqvist and Smith play deep in the net? DAVE TIPPETT: Yeah, I'm not really privy to the knowledge why one doesn't do it. But I just want them to stop the puck, and Smithy has done that a lot for us. I think a lot of it with Smithy is his size and agility and ability to cover as much net as possible, and not give up things behind him is a big part of why he plays deep. Q. With shot blocking becoming such a big part of the game, how has that made you adjust as a coach? How do you feel about that? DAVE TIPPETT: Well, whenever you go into a situation as a coach or as a player, basically at this time of year, you do whatever it takes to win. If that's weighing down in front of a shot or getting in in a shot lane to deter a shot at the net, ultimately players feel that gives you a better chance to win. When you do it and you see the teams that have been successful, you keep the puck out of your net at all costs. Sometimes that takes a few bumps and bruises from some pucks, but the competitive nature of players today leads them to a lot of that will to get the job done. Well, sometimes that's blocking a lot of shots. Q. Is it good for the game with such a big clog in front of the net now? DAVE TIPPETT: I don't know if it's good for the game. It's good for winning. If you want to win, it's good for the game. Q. Obviously there's been an increase in fan base in the last month or two in Phoenix. How big of an impact does that and your guys run in the playoffs have in trying to convince a prospective owner that this is really a hockey town? DAVE TIPPETT: Hopefully it has an impact. Our players have really felt the buzz around the city here for the last month or so. It's something we all recognize the situation off the ice. But if we do our job on the ice, hopefully people will recognize it and be enthused by it. There is a real good core group of fans here. But any time you have a chance to expand that core, it can only be good for the situation. If the new ownership is out there looking at the buzz in the city right now, you'd think he has to be very happy with that. Q. Can you talk about how exciting it is to sort of see the stands and the arena outside get filled when a lot of times during the season it was pretty hard to fill the seats? DAVE TIPPETT: Well, the playoffs are like that a lot of places. The extra excitement that comes with the playoffs, obviously the people have a lot of fun here with the white out. It's a lot of excitement in the game, especially when your team can win in the playoffs. It creates kind of a snowball effect that people want to jump on. Our building has been fantastic the whole playoffs here, and hopefully that will continue. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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