So you want Dave Tippett to coach your team?

I don’t blame you. I kind of want him to coach my team as well, but I’m starting to think this whole Marc Crawford thing isn’t a big practical joke that Joe’s playing on all of us.

It is widely believed that Tippett will coach in the NHL next season. The short list is Minnesota, Calgary and New Jersey. The thought of Dave Tippett coaching a team that will play the Stars four times next year is not a pleasant one. I love you Dave, but have you ever considered the Eastern seaboard?

Should your team land the former mustachioed bench boss, here is what to expect:

He will be stone faced: Don’t expect to see much fire out of this guy. He’s not Joel Quenneville. He’s not going to stare anyone down Barry Trotz style. He’s not going to have a come to Jesus meeting every time the team loses two in a row. He will keep an even keel. He will be cool and collected. He exudes professionalism. It seeps from his pores. I’m not saying that he won’t yell at the occasional ref, but you may sometimes wonder, as you gaze at the bench from your seat in the arena after a series of silly mistakes, “Why won’t he yell at the team???” But don’t worry, most of the time he won’t need to.

He will roll four lines: Better start loving that 12th forward on your roster because you may see him more often. Some coaches (like the Stars new guy) will lean on their skill guys, sending them out there more and more as the game goes on or as the situation requires. Tipp will roll everyone out there, all night long if he can get away with it.

He will demand responsible hockey: Do something stupid on Friday, and guess what happens on Sunday there Mr. Young Player? Your minutes are going from 12 to 5. Ask Fabian Brunnstrom. Have a good time. Maybe defensive responsibility first is a Dallas thing more than a Tippett thing, but I think it’s something that will stick with him.

He will change things up. Mercilessly: Lose a game? Lose a period? Line change time! Tipp likes to play with the combinations on an hourly basis. Mike Modano played on a line with nearly every winger the team had last year, and the occasional center (Brad Richards, though briefly). Mike Ribeiro has seen the man to his right go from Lehtinen to Hagman to Brunnstrom to Eriksson to Neal and all the way back around again over the course of the last few seasons. All coaches do this, you say? Yeah, OK. I promise you that Tipp will do it a little bit more. In his 6 years here it was the thing I found the most irritating by far.

He will make you better: Bottom line. For all his in game tinkering and painfully generic and uninformative sound bites given to the press, his tragic lack of his old mustache and his stoic, passionless nature, he will make you better.