Dave Lewis (ice hockey player)

Dave Lewis
Date of birth	3rd July 1953
place of birth	Kindersley , Saskatchewan , Canada
size	188 cm
Weight	91 kg
position	defender
Shot hand	Left
Draft
NHL Amateur Draft	1973 , 3rd round, 33rd position New York Islanders
WHA Amateur Draft	1973 , 3rd lap, 32nd position Alberta Oilers
Career stations
1971-1973	Saskatoon Blades
1973-1980	New York Islanders
1980-1983	Los Angeles Kings
1983-1986	New Jersey Devils
1986-1988	Detroit Red Wings

David Rodney Lewis (born July 3, 1953 in Kindersley , Saskatchewan ) is a former Canadian ice hockey defender and current coach. As assistant coach to Scotty Bowman , he won the Stanley Cup three times with the Detroit Red Wings .

Career as a player

Dave Lewis began his career in 1971 with the Saskatoon Blades in the Canadian Junior League WCHL . In the 1973 NHL Amateur Draft 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 to play in the National Hockey League and joined the New York Islanders for the 1973/74 season . In his first year with the Islanders, who played their second season in the NHL, Lewis was able to convince with solid performances and established himself in the team's defense.

The team grew very quickly into an aspirant for the Stanley Cup and fought several times to the semi-finals of the playoffs . Lewis was able to play his best season in 1976/77 when he scored 28 points. In March 1980 Lewis was transferred to the Los Angeles Kings along with Billy Harris , the Islanders received Butch Goring . Lewis had helped build the team and just a few months after he left, the Islanders won their first of four Stanley Cups.

Until 1983, he led the Los Angeles Kings as team captain before he was transferred to the Minnesota North Stars , who sent him on to the New Jersey Devils on the same day . The Devils had only been in New Jersey a year and had n't had much success in their franchise history as Kansas City Scouts and Colorado Rockies . Lewis was supposed to play for the team for three years and during that time the team could hardly make any progress.

In the summer of 1986, his contract in New Jersey expired and he signed with the Detroit Red Wings . There he played only 58 games in the 1986/87 season , as he was out longer due to injuries. At the beginning of the following season he still played in the NHL, but announced his career end on November 6, 1987.

Dave Lewis was not considered a particularly talented player and did not collect many points, but he could serve his teams well on the defensive thanks to his sturdy build.

NHL player stats

	Seasons	Games	Gates	Assists	Points	Penalty minutes
Regular season	15th	1.008	36	188	224	953
Playoffs	9	91	1	20th	21st	143

Career as a coach

Lewis as national coach of Ukraine (2010)

In 1988 Dave Lewis became assistant coach of the Detroit Red Wings and worked until 1993 under head coaches Jacques Demers and Bryan Murray . Before the 1993/94 season , legendary coach Scotty Bowman was hired and under him he remained loyal to the Red Wings as an assistant coach.

Lewis saw the Red Wings return to the top of the NHL in this position. In 1995 the team reached the Stanley Cup final and in 1997 and 1998 were finally able to bring the trophy back to Detroit after 42 years. When Bowman complained of health problems in the 1998/99 season , Lewis and Barry Smith , then also an assistant coach to Bowman, took over as head coach and coached the team for almost the entire season before Bowman was healthy again in the summer of 1999.

In 2002 Lewis was able to win the Stanley Cup again with the Red Wings. Scotty Bowman then announced the end of his career and Dave Lewis was his successor as head coach. Under his leadership, the team remained a top player in the NHL, but the playoffs did not go particularly well and the team was eliminated after the second round at the latest. After the loss of the 2004/05 season due to the lockout , Dave Lewis' contract expired in the summer of 2005. The Red Wings decided not to extend the contract and signed Mike Babcock as the new head coach.

Lewis stayed with the organization and became a Red Wings scout in August 2005 . On June 29, 2006, he left Detroit after 20 years and signed a contract with the Boston Bruins as the new head coach. After only a year, however, lost this post when he could not lead the Bruins into the playoffs.

In August 2007 he joined the Los Angeles Kings as assistant coach, but after an unsuccessful season that ended the Kings penultimate in the league, head coach Marc Crawford was fired first and in August 2008 the Kings announced that Lewis would not be Andy Murray's baton will belong to the new coach .

In the spring of 2009, Lewis was appointed assistant coach of the Belarusian national team at the World Cup , where he worked alongside Glen Hanlon , whom he also assisted in the 2009/10 season at HK Dinamo Minsk . At the 2011 Division I World Cup , Lewis was the head coach of Ukraine behind the gang. For the 2011/12 season he accepted an offer from the Carolina Hurricanes to act as an assistant coach. Together with head coach Kirk Muller , he was released after the 2013/14 season.

In December 2014, he became the head coach of the Belarusian national team and looked after the team until 2018. During the current men's World Cup in 2018 , he was given leave of absence on May 8, 2018 due to a bad tournament start.

Achievements and Awards

As a trainer

• Stanley Cup winner 1997, 1998 and 2002 (as assistant coach of the Detroit Red Wings )
• NHL Allstar Game 2004 (as coach of the Western Conference )

Web links

• Dave Lewis at hockeydb.com (English)
• Dave Lewis at legendsofhockey.net (English)
• Dave Lewis at eliteprospects.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dave Lewis goes east again. In: iihf.com. December 12, 2014, accessed March 10, 2016 . 
2. ^ IIHF - Belarus changes coach. In: iihf.com. May 8, 2018, accessed September 17, 2019 .