Dallas Stars Fire Head Coach
After the Dallas Stars lost their third consecutive Western Conference Finals series, they fired their head coach Peter DeBoer. Stars manager Jim Nill gave the following statement, “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. 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.” DeBoer leaves the organization with a 149-68-29 regular-season record in three seasons in position as the Stars’ head coach. He made the playoffs in all three seasons, losing in the Western Conference Finals all three times. In the 2022-23 season, Dallas fell in a six-game series to the Vegas Golden Knights, who would go on to win the Stanley Cup that season. In the 2023-24 season and the 2024-25 season, Dallas would fall to the Edmonton Oilers. In 2024, they did so in six games. In 2025, they did so in five games.
This most recent Western Conference Finals, however, ended with DeBoer pulling goaltender Jake Oettinger after the Oilers scored on their first two shots of the game. After Oettinger gave up two goals in the first seven minutes of Game Five, one a point-blank power-play one-timer and one a breakaway, DeBoer called a timeout. As Oettinger skated back to his goal, DeBoer animatedly called him back to the bench to be replaced by Casey DeSmith. Oettinger later called it “embarrassing” to be pulled. After the game, DeBoer was asked about the decision to pull his goalie. “We had talked endlessly in this series about trying to play with a lead, and obviously, we’re in a 2-0 hole right away, and you know what? I didn’t take that lightly, and I didn’t blame it all on Jake, but 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 shots and two goals in an elimination game. It was partly to spark our team and wake them up, and partly knowing that the status quo had not been working, and that’s a pretty big sample size.” Following a wave of head coaches hired to fill vacancies, the Dallas Stars are now the only NHL team without a head coach.
DeBoer has a career 662-447-152 regular-season coaching record. This includes 2008 to 2011 with the Florida Panthers, 2011 to 2014 with the New Jersey Devils, 2015 to 2019 with the San Jose Sharks, 2020 to 2022 with the Vegas Golden Knights, and 2022 to 2025 with the Dallas Stars. He has gone to the Stanley Cup Finals on two separate occasions. In 2012, he helped lead the Devils to the Stanley Cup Finals. They lost in six games to the Los Angeles Kings. In 2016, he helped lead the San Jose Sharks to the Stanley Cup Finals. They lost in six games to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Peter DeBoer has had a long and successful career and will be a top name mentioned the next time any NHL team needs to fill a vacancy.
