Dave Lewis (ice hockey)
David Rodney Lewis ( born July 3, 1953 in Kindersley, Saskatchewan ) is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey defender and currently an assistant coach of the Carolina Hurricanes of the National Hockey League. As an assistant coach Scotty Bowman, he won with the Detroit Red Wings Stanley Cup three times.
- 3.1 As a coach
Career as a player
Dave Lewis began his career in 1971 with the Saskatoon Blades in the Canadian Junior Football League WCHL. In the NHL Amateur Draft 1973, he was selected by the New York Islanders in the third round at position 33 and in the WHA Amateur Draft by the Alberta Oilers also in the third round and at position 32.
Lewis decided in the National Hockey League to play and the New York joined the 1973/74 season at Islanders. In the first year with the Islanders, who contested their second season in the NHL, Lewis convinced by solid performances and established himself in the defense of the team.
The team quickly grew to a aspirant to the Stanley Cup and fought several times until the semi-finals of the playoffs before. Lewis was his best season 1976/77 play when he scored 28 points. In March 1980, Lewis was transferred along with Billy Harris to the Los Angeles Kings, the Islander Butch Goring received. Lewis had helped the team build on and on and only a few months after he had left the team, the Islanders won their first of four Stanley Cups.
By 1983, he led the Los Angeles Kings as a team captain before he was transferred to the Minnesota North Stars, which further sent him to the New Jersey Devils on the same day. The Devils were only a year in New Jersey and had their franchise history to celebrate as Kansas City Scouts and Colorado Rockies have had little success. Three years should Lewis playing for the team and also in the time, the team could not make progress.
In the summer of 1986, his contract ran out in New Jersey and he signed with the Detroit Red Wings. There he played in the 1986/87 season only 58 games, since it turned out longer due to injuries. At the start of the following season, he was still playing in the NHL, but made his career end on November 6, 1987 known.
Dave Lewis was not seen as particularly talented player and also not collected many points, but he could afford his teams through its powerful stature of great service in defense.
NHL player statistics
Career as a coach
In 1988, Dave Lewis assistant coach of the Detroit Red Wings and worked until 1993 as the head coaches Jacques Demers and Bryan Murray. Prior to the 1993/94 season coaching legend Scotty Bowman was committed and under him he was the Red Wings assistant coach faithful.
Lewis experienced in this post the great return of the Red Wings at the top of the NHL. In 1995, the team reached the Stanley Cup final and could get to Detroit in 1997 and 1998, finally after 42 years back the trophy. As Bowman complained in the season 1998 /99 on health problems, took Lewis and Barry Smith, then also an assistant coach of Bowman, the post of head coach and trained the team almost the entire season before Bowman was well again in the summer of 1999.
2002 Lewis was with the Red Wings once again the Stanley Cup win. Scotty Bowman was then the end of his career known and Dave Lewis became his successor as head coach. Under his leadership, the team remained a top force in the NHL, but in the playoffs it was not very good and at the latest after the second round, the team was eliminated. After the failure of the 2004/05 season due to the lockout, the Treaty of Dave Lewis ran out in the summer of 2005. The Red Wings decided not to renew the contract, committing Mike Babcock as the new head coach.
Lewis, however, remained in the organization and was in August 2005 Scout the Red Wings. On 29 June 2006 but he then left Detroit after 20 years and signed a contract with the Boston Bruins as the new head coach. After only one year, however, this post lost when he could not perform in the playoffs the Bruins.
In August 2007, he the Los Angeles Kings joined as assistant coach, but after an unsuccessful season, which completed the Kings second to last place in the league, head coach Marc Crawford the Kings was first released and gave in August 2008 that Lewis not to staff of new coach Andy Murray will belong.
In early 2009, Lewis was appointed assistant coach of the Belarusian national team at the World Cup, where he worked on the side of Glen Hanlon, whom he also assisted in the 2009/10 season at HK Dinamo Minsk. At the World Championships 2011 Division I Lewis stood as head coach of the Ukraine behind the gang. For the season 2011/12 he accepted an offer from the Carolina Hurricanes to serve there as assistant coach.
Awards and achievements
As a coach
- Stanley Cup winner in 1997, 1998 and 2002 ( as assistant coach of the Detroit Red Wings )
- NHL All-Star Game 2004 ( as coach of the Western Conference )