The Dallas Stars announced earlier this morning that head coach Pete DeBoer has been relieved of his duties, effective immediately.
Woah.
One week ago, the Stars’ season ended in heartbreaking fashion to the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference Finals. It was the third consecutive year that Dallas had reached that point, with DeBoer being at the helm for every single year that the team managed to achieve that feat.
In that game, he made the bold, but rash, decision to pull starting goalie Jake Oettinger just seven minutes into the game. Down by two goals, and with the season on the line, DeBoer made a move that was intended to light a fire under his team. Instead, all he seemingly did was give the front office ammunition to cut ties with him one week later.
DeBoer was in a tricky spot, one slightly of his own creation. He’d pulled every lever he possibly could, and decided to throw a Hail Mary that got picked off in the end zone. In the process,DeBoer might’ve alienated Oettinger, the franchise goalie, as he headed into the final year of his contract. That’s not an attractive place to be, and in the case of DeBoer v. Oettinger, the Stars sided with the man that they just signed to an 8-year contract extension last summer: Oettinger.
Over these last seven days, there have been rumblings that players were not pleased with how DeBoer had handled some particular moments during this postseason run, with the decision to pull Oettinger in Game 5 of the WCF being chief among them. Still, when owner Tom Gaglardi came out shortly after the season ended and proclaimed that firing DeBoer was not on the table, it appeared that that was that. Here’s the full quote from Gaglardi, courtesy of the The Dallas Morning News:
“They wanted to know if Pete [DeBoer] was out, they said the rumor up there was that he was out,” Gaglardi said last Friday. “Are you kidding me? He’s a top three, top five coach in the league. You think I want to be going into the coaching market right now, do you see who’s getting hired? Pete’s a seasoned coach. I’m just one voice in the discussion but I don’t see [firing] Pete being on anyone’s agenda.”
Still, exactly one week later, Pete DeBoer is out, and the Stars find themselves on the hunt for a new head man.
But why? Was it really all because of the Oettinger move? Was it because of some poor messaging during the postseason? Or was it because he failed to bring the team that ownership and the front office labeled as Stanley Cup worthy to that ultimate goal?
Maybe it’s all of the above. Maybe it’s just one of those reasons. I’m sure we’ll know soon enough, perhaps even as soon as when general manager Jim Nill speaks to the media later this afternoon.
For me, the crux of the issue is simple: Pete DeBoer was here for three seasons, and the Stars reached the Western Conference Finals in all three of those campaigns. While that’s an achievement in itself, each and every time it appeared that the Stars were regressing once they reached that milestone.
In 2023, Dallas went down 3-0, then fought tooth and nail to claw its way back, only to fall in six games to Vegas. In 2024, the Stars went up 2-1 and had a two-goal lead in Game 4 before the offense completely shut down for the rest of the series and the Oilers won three in a row to move on. Then, in 2025, well, it sucked. The offense was poor, the defense was all over the place, and the stars for the Stars continually failed to show up. In all of the exit interviews that DeBoer conducted following the end of the season, he inferred that even though on paper this team was the most talented he’d had in Dallas, it was still lucky to reach this point due to the quality of its play.
I’d agree. And in the eyes of the front office, that was on DeBoer. This roster was already well-positioned to compete for a Stanley Cup prior to the season, and then added Mikko Rantanen and Mikael Granlund to the mix in February and March to bolster its chances. Even then, it wasn’t good enough. It probably should’ve been.
Coaching in the NHL is a fickle game. You rarely see coaches be in one place for a super long time1, especially Pete DeBoer. He’s been employed every season since 2008-09, but has been fired a whopping five times over that stretch. There’s no doubt that he’s a good coach in this league, but man, he sure does seem to wear out his welcome really fast.
In Dallas, the Stars were always really good under DeBoer. Over the past three seasons, the Stars had the best record in the NHL (149-68-29) and made three consecutive Western Conference Finals. But in a league where success, and success now, is paramount, and for a team that desperately needs to win soon, even what DeBoer could offer was seemingly not worth the Stars’ while.
Who the Stars go to now is an excellent question. In order for this to even be a lateral move, you’d have to think that the target is one that’s highly regarded. Is that person out there, though? That’s the question, as the Stars have gotten themselves into the coaching search game fairly late. With Boston filling their head coaching vacancy yesterday, all the positions around the NHL have been filled, and most of the attractive candidates have found their footing somewhere.
It’ll be interesting to see what Dallas decides to do. It’s clear, though, that Jim Nill and Tom Gaglardi are not complacent. They, probably more than anybody, desire for the Dallas Stars to be champions once again. Whatever moves they have to make to get the Stars to that point is what they’re going to do. I certainly hope they’re correct about this one.
The longest tenured NHL coach is Jon Cooper, the head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning. Cooper’s been in Tampa since 2013. After him, it’s Jared Bednar, the head coach of the Colorado Avalanche (2016).
DeBoer runs hot and what he did to Otter was going to be hard to recover from. If he had reached out immediately after the game with an olive branch, maybe. But, he doubled down and brought up his poor record against Edmonton.