Dallas Stars fire head coach Pete DeBoer after 3 seasons, Western Conference finals appearances
The Dallas Stars are parting ways with head coach Pete DeBoer after he led the team to three straight Western Conference Finals appearances.
On Friday, the team announced it fired DeBoer despite having one more year on his contract. The coach had been in charge of the Stars since 2022.
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'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,' general manager Jim Nill said in a statement. '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 Stars scrapped their way through the playoffs after a 50-26 regular season. Dallas beat the Colorado Avalanche in seven games and the Winnipeg Jets in six. They took a 1-0 lead over the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference finals before the opposition rallied through the next four games.
Days before DeBoer's dismissal, team owner Tom Gaglardi spoke to the Dallas News and rejected speculation about DeBoer's job being in jeopardy.
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'Are you kidding me? He's a top-three, top-five coach in the league,' Gaglardi said. 'I'm just one voice in the discussion but I don't see [firing] Pete being on anyone's agenda.'
Before arriving in Dallas, DeBoer had stints with the Vegas Golden Knights, San Jose Sharks, New Jersey Devils and Florida Panthers. With two Stanley Cup appearances to his name, DeBoer made the Conference Finals in six of his last seven seasons with three different teams.
DeBoer, who holds a 9-0 record in Game 7s, did not have the smoothest of exits from his tenure in Dallas. After ending the regular season on a seven-game losing streak and squeezing through the first two rounds, the veteran coach made questionable decisions that led to their elimination.
After winning the first game in the conference finals, the Stars lost the next four games on a 19-4 goal deficit. DeBoer benched starting goalie Jake Oettinger after the Oilers went up 2-0 in Game 5. Edmonton went on to win 6-3, eliminating the Stars for the third straight season.
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'I didn't blame it all on Jake, but you know, 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 postgame after yelling at Oettinger to leave the rink.
"So it was partly to spark our team, and partly that the status quo had not been working," he continued.
DeBoer leaves Dallas with a 149-68 record.
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