Golden Knights offseason
Pete DeBoer has no regrets with how his tenure with the Golden Knights ended last spring.
He exhausted as many avenues as he could to build a championship contender, coaching an injury-plagued roster to the brink of playoff contention. But Vegas missed the postseason for the first time in the franchise’s five-year history and DeBoer lost his job.
Some three months later, the sting of being fired on May 16 after two-and-a-half seasons — and a pair of trips to the conference final — has worn off. It’s part of the business, and DeBoer knows that well.
Now, DeBoer, one of eight active NHL coaches with 500 victories, is at his fifth coaching stop after the Dallas Stars hired him on June 21.
“The other times I’ve been fired, you can see that coming a mile away. You can feel it coming on, you know it’s coming,” DeBoer told the Sun this week in his first interview with a Las Vegas news outlet since his departure. “This one, I’m not going to lie, did rattle me, did jar me, did surprise me a little bit.”
That’s because Vegas made it to the 81st game of the 82-game season before being eliminated from postseason contention, despite losing 500-plus man games to a rash of injuries — extended absences from the likes of stars Mark Stone, Max Pacioretty and Robin Lehner, to name a few.
Still, DeBoer thought that with the hand he and his coaching staff were dealt, he would get the opportunity to come back with a presumably healthy roster. The Golden Knights also relieved assistant coaches Steve Spott (DeBoer’s longtime assistant who joined him in Dallas) and Ryan McGill (now with New Jersey).
“I’ve worked in this league long enough to know those aren’t your decisions,” DeBoer said. “We had some honest, frank conversations at the end of the season, and Kelly (general manager McCrimmon) thought our group wasn’t going to be part of the solution. That’s their prerogative.”
DeBoer came to Vegas at the onset of the pandemic in January 2020. He coached the Golden Knights for two months before the season paused, then resumed in a COVID bubble in Edmonton in August. There, Vegas reached the Western Conference Final against Dallas before losing the best-of-seven series 4-1.
The 2020-21 season, which started two-and-a-half months later, saw Vegas match the Presidents Trophy-winning Colorado Avalanche stride-for-stride. The two finished tied with the most points in the league, and the rivalry culminated with the Golden Knights winning a six-game, second-round playoff series between the league’s top two teams
“I would’ve hoped after back-to-back conference finals, and six months earlier we were playing for the Presidents Trophy and beating Colorado in the playoffs, that I would’ve gotten the opportunity to work with a full roster,” DeBoer said. “(But) there’s nothing in this business at this level that’s fair, and I’m at peace with it.”
The long playoff runs led to shorter offseasons, which could have been among the factors leading to the team’s failure to reach the postseason in 2022. Unrested players became injured players.
“We had three compressed seasons. I felt as the season wound down, you could feel the fatigue that had gained over time,” McCrimmon said May 16 on why he fired DeBoer. “We missed the playoffs, which is humbling for a team no matter what the reasons were. I think what it’s going to give us is an opportunity in the fall to be rested, rehabbed, recharged, excited.”
And DeBoer is equally excited for his spot leading the Stars, where he said he looked at the roadmap presented by his Vegas predecessor.
DeBoer replaced Gerard Gallant on Jan. 15, 2020, two years after Gallant won the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s coach of the year and led Vegas to the Stanley Cup Final in the team’s inaugural season.
Gallant took the COVID-shortened, 56-game season off and was hired by the New York Rangers on June 16, 2021.
Gallant coached the Rangers to the Eastern Conference Final this past season before New York fell to the three-time conference champion Tampa Bay Lightning in six games.
“He bounced back and got into a good spot in New York and did his thing again,” DeBoer said of Gallant. “I’m hoping to do the same thing I’ve always done.”
DeBoer said that when he took the Vegas job he underestimated how much Gallant and the original Golden Knights were beloved. But for “as many haters there were out there” when DeBoer took over, there were way more people who “went out of their way to welcome me to Vegas,” he said.
“It never really crossed my mind walking in and trying to fill those shoes with this fan group,” DeBoer said. “It was a great opportunity offered to me that I’m glad I took.”
DeBoer finished 98-50-12 in 160 games with Vegas. Now, he takes over a Dallas team that reached the playoffs in 2022 but lost in Game 7 of the first round to the Calgary Flames. He will make his return to Vegas Jan. 16 when the Stars visit T-Mobile Arena.
“I’m just excited,” DeBoer said. “Anytime you don’t succeed somewhere and don’t win a championship, the hunger inside any coach burns to get back and try again.”
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