Tipp out. Crawford in.
June 11th, 2009 by BradJoe Nieuwendyk didn’t waste any time in making a big, bold strike did he?
When trying to compose a coherent paragraph or two in such a tumultuous time, it’s hard to choose a definitive road to take. “What did Dave Tippett do wrong?” is a question that comes to mind. “What can Marc Crawford do better?” is another.
Rather than pick the pieces apart this morning and dissect the past (why did he get fired?), or prognosticate the future (how is Crawford different), maybe we should just sort of take a 35,000 foot view of this thing.
The Stars fired a coach under whose guidance they collected points at a 62% clip over the course of 6 seasons. (64%, excluding this past, injury riddled season)
The view from 35,000 feet suggests that Joe Nieuwendyk, Jeff Cogen, and Mr. Tom Hicks think that Marc Crawford can do better. Evidence suggests otherwise as Crawford has a significantly worse winning percentage (55%) in his career.
That seems counter intuitive to me.
But he won a Cup, you say? That was 13 years ago, and he had the best goaltender. Ever. I don’t want to hear about what anyone did 13 years ago. Guess what Mike Modano was doing 13 years ago?
Joe Nieuwendyk has been the General Manager for 11 days. 11 days. And his first official act was to fling the franchise from it’s safe perch into a pit of uncertainty. Ken Hitchcock and Dave Tippett may not be the sexiest names in the business, but they made this thing a consistent, serious competitor for more than a decade with a structured, defensive style. That, as they say, is about to “go by the wayside.”
Look at this sentence from Crawford’s Wikipedia entry:
Despite Vancouver’s regular season success, they only managed to win one playoff series during Crawford’s tenure and, compounded by the Canucks’ failure to make the postseason in 2005–06, Crawford was let go by management on April 25, 2006, and replaced by Alain Vigneault
How many words do you need to replace in that sentence to make it fit on Dave Tippett’s Wikipedia page? It’s not that many, I’ll tell you that.
At the very best, if they’re lucky, the Stars are hiring what they’ve had.
They’ve changed the General Manager. They’ve changed the coach. Ok.
Guess what?
The roster is still the same. They’ve still got problems on defense. They still need a backup goaltender. They’ve still got the 8th pick in the draft. They still don’t have any money to spend on free agency, and they still don’t have very many attractive trade chips with which they’d be willing to part.
The view from 35,000 feet looks exactly the same as it did before. They’re still going to try and fix those holes on defense. They’re still going to hope like hell they stay healthy. They’re going to re-rack and have another go next year with the same basic plan they would have anyway.
I think this is called change for the sake of change, no?
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2 Responses to “Tipp out. Crawford in.”
By Jason Chen on Jun 11, 2009
I really think maybe Tippett wasn’t Nieuwendyk’s “guy.” Being a Vancouver fan, I can tell you that Crawford received too much credit for his work in Colorado and Vancouver. I think what’s most telling about Crawford was his abysmal performance with a Kings squad. After his departure a lot of players voiced their disappointment with him.
Let’s hope Crawford doesn’t screw this up - the Stars are a class organization and Modano deserves to end his career on a high note. If the Stars want to be successful Turco will need to bounce back because you can bet that Crawford will be more pre-occupied with the offensive side of things.
By Brad on Jun 11, 2009
A lot of Dallas fans are excited at the prospect of Crawford being quicker to pull Marty potentially than Tipp was…of course, they need to find themselves a capable backup since they’ve traded all the good ones away (Hedberg, Smith, etc.)
Marty’s stock is not very high in Dallas right now.