Pete DeBoer was fired as coach of the Dallas Stars on Friday.
“After careful consideration, we believe that a new voice is needed in our locker room to push us closer to our goal of winning the Stanley Cup,” Stars general manager Jim Nill said. “We’d like to thank Pete for everything that he has helped our organization achieve over the past three seasons and wish him nothing but the best moving forward.”
The 56-year-old guided Dallas to a 50-26-6 record this season and led them to the Western Conference Final for the third straight season. However, he was very critical of goalie Jake Oettinger in a Game 7 loss to the Edmonton Oilers in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final on May 29, pulling the team’s No. 1 goalie after he allowed two goals on two shots in 7:09 of the first period.
“The reality is, if you go back to last year’s playoffs, he’s lost six of seven games to Edmonton and we gave up two (goals) on two (shots) in an elimination game,” DeBoer said of Oettinger. “It was partly to spark our team and wake them up and partly knowing that status quo had not been working. And that’s a pretty big sample size.”
Two days later, DeBoer clarified those comments.
“No one is a bigger fan of Jake Oettinger than me, as a person or a goalie,” DeBoer said when the Stars held their end-of-season media availability. “Does that mean he can’t be coached or he doesn’t have growth in him? Absolutely [not], he’s a young goalie.”
In three seasons with the Stars, DeBoer was 149-68-29 with a 29-27 record in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. He is 662-447-152 in 1,261 regular-season games with the Stars, Vegas Golden Knights, San Jose Sharks, New Jersey Devils and Florida Panthers and 97-82 in the playoffs. DeBoer’s teams have made the third round of the playoffs six of the past seven seasons and he has guided two teams (Devils, 2012; Sharks 2016) to the Stanley Cup Final.
DeBoer ranks fourth among active coaches and 17th all-time in coaching wins.
