Last week, the Dallas Stars made a coaching change, as General Manager Jim Nill announced that he had fired Pete DeBoer, who had a season left on his contract. While the Stars’ GM did not want to get into specifics, he felt that a change of direction was needed to get the team over the hump that had kept them out of the Western Conference Final for three seasons in a row.
“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,” 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.”
NHL Rumors: Is Pete DeBoer’s Time Winding Down with the Dallas Stars?
As Nill told the media in attendance at his press conference after firing DeBoer as the head coach, it was a difficult decision to make this type of move, given the team’s success over the last couple of seasons. While the decision surrounding the pull of Jake Oettinger in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final was the ultimate nail in the coffin for DeBoer, his comments following the game did not help his cause.
“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.”
And before DeBoer was fired by the Stars, he double downed during the year end media availability stating their was room for growth in Oettinger’s game.
“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 , he’s a young goalie.”
NHL Rumors: Is Pete DeBoer’s Time Winding Down with the Dallas Stars?
As NHLRumors.com has been reporting, the players have not been happy with Pete DeBoer recently. There had been rumblings coming out of the final media availability that players were looking for a change of direction. More specifically, were not happy with the way things went down with Oettinger. Even though Nill stated he was ok with the pull of Oettinger in Game 5, those comments following the game were an issue, as he have signed Oettinger to an eight-year contract extension.