NHL News & Notes: Dave Tippett, Sheldon Keefe & More

In today’s News & Notes, Dave Tippett has been named the head coach of the Edmonton Oilers, Sheldon Keefe has signed a two-year extension with the Toronto Marlies and Jesper Sellgren has signed with the Carolina Hurricanes.

Tippett Named Oilers Head Coach

The Oilers have officially hired Tippett to a three-year contract to take over the reins as their head coach. This news was expected to take place and was announced Monday before being officially confirmed Tuesday by the team at a press conference.

Tippett has extensive experience coaching in the NHL and boasts a record of 553-413-28-120 across 1,114 career games. He was also the winner of the Jack Adams Award, given to the NHL’s best coach, in 2009-10.

He’d spend 14 seasons coaching between the Dallas Stars and Arizona Coyotes, making the playoffs in eight of his first nine seasons as a coach. Unfortunately, the Coyotes would falter in Tippett’s last five seasons in the desert, missing the postseason each year.

Despite the lack of success in the end of his tenure with the Coyotes, a run that ended following a 30-42-10 record in the 2016-17 season, Tippett was widely regarded as one of the only redeemable qualities of those teams, getting the most out of a bad situation.

For the Oilers, the hope is that he can do the same in Edmonton with better results at the end of the day.

Keefe Signs Extension With Marlies

While the Toronto Maple Leafs have transformed themselves into one of the best teams in the NHL, their AHL affiliate, the Toronto Marlies, have also found a great deal of success under Keefe as their head coach.

With that success in mind, the team isn’t making any changes as far as Keefe is concerned as he is remaining with the team on a new two-year extension.

“Over the last four seasons Sheldon has done a great job developing our individual prospects into Maple Leafs while also guiding the Marlies deep into the playoffs in each of his four seasons with the organization, including the Calder Cup in 2018,” said Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas. “Ensuring that Sheldon remains tasked with guiding the development of our prospects was very important to our program and the reason we began the discussion to extend Sheldon months ago.”

Keefe would also release a statement expressing his gratitude for the opportunity to remain in Toronto.

“It’s been a privilege and honour to be part of the Toronto Maple Leafs organization and head coach of the Toronto Marlies for the past four seasons,” said Keefe. “In my conversations with the Leafs over the past several months, I felt that staying on with this club was the best decision for me, my family and my development. I’m incredibly proud of our recent achievements as a club and I’m grateful for the opportunity to continue to develop young Maple Leafs.”

In four seasons under Keefe, the Marlies have gone 189-87-20-1 and won the franchise’s first Calder Cup Championship in 2018.

Sellgren Signs With Hurricanes

The Hurricanes took care of some offseason bookkeeping when they signed Sellgren to a three-year entry-level contract that will start in 2019-20. The deal will carry a $700,000 salary at the NHL level for the first two years of the contract and $750,000 in the final year. He’ll earn $70,000 annually at the AHL level while also receiving a signing bonus of $260,000.

Sellgren is currently playing with the Hurricanes’ AHL affiliate, the Charlotte Checkers, on a professional try-out agreement.

“Jesper is a solid, two-way defenseman who played for one of the top teams in Sweden in 2018-19,” said general manager Don Waddell. “We’re looking forward to him taking the next steps in his development.”

The 20-year-old defender would score three goals and 15 points in 52 regular season games with Lulea HF of the Swedish Hockey League this season. He’d also score three goals and six points in 10 postseason contests.

Sellgren was originally taken 166th overall by the Hurricanes in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft.

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