Is Crawford The Answer?

Much like eating a banana that’s bright green in hue, selling new coach Marc Crawford down the river before he says an official word as head coach of the Stars would be a painful case of jumping the gun.
 
New GM Joe Niewyndyk pulled the trigger on this move Wednesday, but would not make a statement, at Dave Tippett’s wishes, until this morning.
 
Crawford is not without his credentials. He won a Jack Adams Award for the NHL’s best coach in 1995, and a Stanley Cup championship with the Avalanche in 1996.
 
Crawford’s track record since then though -- since Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. succumbed to gun violence all those years ago -- is, well, not so sparkling.
 
The Avalanche failed survive the first round of the playoffs in 1998, leading to his resignation. Crawford took the helm for Vancouver after that, becoming the winningest head coach in team history; however, they only made it to the second round of the playoffs once.
 
Crawford didn’t fare much better in Los Angeles, his last coaching stop, missing the playoffs in both of his two seasons at the helm; he was widely criticized for making scathing, unproductive indictments of young players to the press.
 
Dallas will mark Crawford’s fourth coaching stop, his first after a year off, during which he served as a television analyst. And, despite the aforementioned accolades, Crawford’s infamy may have surpassed his fame in recent years.
 
Todd Bertuzzi sued Crawford, his coach in Vancouver, for allegedly instructing him to hit Steve Moore, in a play that ultimately led to Moore’s neck being broken; he has been involved in numerous scuffles, the most famous of which took place between he and Scotty Bowman, then the head coach of the Redwings.
 
Ah, but perhaps these allusions are no more than sour grapes, the lamentations of a writer who though Dave Tippett deserved another, less injury-plagued season.
 
Perhaps this was the right move, after all; Crawford has historically facilitated offensive stars, and it will be no different in Dallas. That means more minutes for Brad Richards, Mike Ribeiro and company, (ostensibly) more goals, and (perhaps) higher ticket sales.
 
Dallas has the pieces in place to be, failing an offensive ‘juggernaut’, a very dangerous offensive team. Crawford’s only Stanley Cup win came with a similar team, in the 1998 Avs—the major difference, of course, being Patrick Roy, who in 1998 was a tad more consistent than Marty Turco was a year ago.
 
The ultimate reasoning behind the hiring/firing will ineluctably be a supposed need for a new voice in the dressing room; this is the politically correct answer, after all, and it’s probably, in this case, true.
 
Dallas will hold a press conference announcing Crawford as head coach Thursday afternoon.