Jim Playfair will reportedly join Dave Tippett’s coaching staff

Dave Tippett’s coaching staff is slowly coming together. According to Craig Morgan, lead Coyotes writer for The Athletic Arizona, Jim Playfair will join Tippett’s staff as an assistant coach.

Playfair was the 20th overall choice of the Oilers back in 1982 but never played a game with the NHL club. A big defenceman drafted from the Portland Winterhawks, Playfair played three seasons for the Nova Scotia Oilers of the AHL before leaving the organization. He would go on to play 19 NHL games with the Chicago Blackhawks.

Playfair’s coaching career is much more colourful than his playing career. He started coaching the Dayton Bombers of the ECHL shortly after retiring and eventually landed a gig as the head coach of the Calgary Flames’ farm team in Saint John. After a couple of years there, he was called up to become an assistant with the Flames. Playfair would be the Flames’ head coach for one season in 2006-07 between the Darryl Sutter and Mike Keenan eras.

A couple of years after Tippett was hired by the Coyotes, he added Playfair to his staff as an assistant coach. The two coached together there for six seasons before the Coyotes ultimately decided to go in a new direction.

Playfair will become the Oilers’ third defence coach in three seasons. They’ve gone from Jim Johnson to Trent Yawney now to Playfair. We’ll find out soon who the other members of Tippett’s bench will be next year.

In the meantime, enjoy this all-time Playfair moment: