Tippett’s Career Getting a Boost

He played on an NCAA championship team at North Dakota, scored 262 points in 11 seasons in the NHL and was a two-time Olympian, serving as captain of the Canadian team at Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, in 1984 and winning a silver medal at Albertville, France, eight years later.

As coach and general manager, he led the Houston Aeros of the International Hockey League to the 1999 Turner Cup championship. And as an assistant coach, he helped the Kings reach the playoffs the last two seasons.

But something was always missing whenever Dave Tippett talked to NHL teams, most recently the Mighty Ducks last summer, about their coaching vacancies: He had no experience calling the shots as a head coach in the NHL.

That’s why his current stint as interim coach of the Kings, filling in while Andy Murray recuperates from last month’s auto accident, could turn out to be a career-altering opportunity for the 40-year-old Tippett.

“Is the experience good for me down the road? Yeah,” Tippett said. “But not having this experience, I still think I would be capable of doing the job.”

King General Manager Dave Taylor does too.

“I have a very high opinion of Dave Tippett,” Taylor said, “and I’ve said a number of times that it’s only a matter of time before he’s a head coach in the NHL.”

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Ken Belanger, who had been sidelined since Jan. 2 because of a broken left thumb, returned to the lineup Saturday and played 2 minutes 18 seconds, long enough to get into a second-period fight with Jody Shelley. A roster spot opened for Belanger when rookie Ryan Flinn was reassigned to the Kings’ American Hockey team at Manchester, N.H.... Rookie Andreas Lilja, loaned to the Manchester Monarchs for games Friday and Saturday, is scheduled to rejoin the Kings today.

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Jerry Crowe