There Were Too Many Issues in Dallas for the Stars Not to Make a Coaching Change
Dave Pagnotta of the Fourth Period joined Gord Stellick and Scott Laughlin on Sirius XM NHL Network Radio on Monday and was asked about why Pete DeBoer got fired by the Dallas Stars.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Dallas Stars Had No Choice To Move On From Pete DeBoer
Gord Stellick: “So as we look forward, Dave, we’ve been talking about the fact this seems to be a year of especially hard post mortems for a lot of teams that go deep, whether it’s the Leafs going seven against Florida, Rob Blake out in LA, big part because of how Edmonton came back in that series. Carolina, not thrilled about going out in five.
And what’s your take on the surprising news for a lot of us, it’s not quite like Jimmy Johnson and Jerry Jones having a spat way back when with the Dallas Cowboys and him leaving after, winning a Super Bowl, but Pete DeBoer being out and what his status was, or what was going on before the whole Jake Oettinger pull happened?”
Dave Pagnotta: “Yeah, I mean, Dallas specifically, that was a factor. Obviously, that played a factor in it. But there were other incidentces that occurred throughout the Western Conference Final that kind of irked the players the wrong way. It wasn’t just exclusive; them voicing their concerns to Jim Nill and to management wasn’t exclusive to just the pulling of Jake Ottinger, and then the post-game comments, and the exit meetings or exit interviews with the media afterwards.
NHL Rumors: Is Pete DeBoer’s Time Winding Down with the Dallas Stars?
It wasn’t just exclusive to that. It was kind of all-encompassing. There were other incidents that occurred behind closed doors, in the room where the players took issue with. And that’s ultimately, that collectively was the reason why management decided that they’d have to make a change.
Prior to that, I mean, they were moving forward with the mindset was to move forward with him behind the bench going into next season. But obviously, with the amount of voices that stepped up, they made that change.
And I think between that and yeah, Carolina and Toronto, there’s so much these teams that are at the top echelon of the league. The expectations are high, and only one team could win the Stanley Cup. Only two could play in the Stanley Cup Final. But everybody that’s there, all these top-tier teams, they believe that they can be there.
So if they need to make a change, if they need to tweak something minuscule or, or pretty big, they’re going to do it. They’re not afraid to do it at this point. So the turnover that we’re going to see on and off the ice is partly because of how much these teams believe they’re right there in contention.”
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