DeBoer’s move to Vegas is ‘shocking’
DENVER >> The Sharks knew that Pete DeBoer would find another job as an NHL head coach at some point.
They just didn’t think it would be with their most bitter rival.
DeBoer replaced Gerard Gallant on Wednesday morning as the coach of the Vegas Golden Knights, who have lost four straight games and entered the day in fifth place in the Pacific Division with a 2419-6 record.
DeBoer spent four-plus seasons as the Sharks’ coach before he was fired by the team Dec. 11 after a 15-16-2 start. Just a little more than month later, DeBoer now works for San Jose’s archenemy. The two teams met in two hotly contested playoff series in 2018 and 2019.
“Everybody’s phones just started going off,” in the morning, said Sharks interim coach Bob Boughner, who worked as DeBoer’s assistant from 2015-17 and again this season.
“Obviously happy for Pete. I think it’s going to be a great spot for him. I knew it was just a matter of time. I didn’t know if he was going to wait until the summer and take a few months, but when an opportunity like that comes up, him considering taking it is very understandable.”
Vegas’ first game with DeBoer will be tonight in Ottawa against the Senators. The Sharks, who play in Colorado against the Avalanche tonight, do not play the Golden Knights again this year.
Most Sharks players were still in their hotel rooms in Denver when they saw the
news on social media — first about Gallant getting let go and then about DeBoer becoming his replacement.
“Every guy on the team was pretty surprised,” Sharks center Tomas Hertl said. “It’s kind of shocking. Nobody expected the coach from Vegas to get fired, and right away Pete gets there. Nobody knows actually what to think about it. But it’s for sure big news and a really big surprise.”
Vegas went 3-0-1 in the season series with the Sharks, including a pair of convincing wins to start the regular season. All of those games came with DeBoer behind the Sharks bench.
DeBoer, 51, went 198129-34 as the Sharks coach from 2015-19. He led the Sharks to the Stanley Cup Final in 2016 and to another Western Conference final last season. In all, the Sharks played 60 playoff games in four seasons under DeBoer.
Thirteen of those playoff games came against the Golden Knights, with Vegas winning its second-round series with the Sharks in 2018.
Last season, the Sharks beat the Golden Knights in seven games in the first round, erasing a threegames-to-one deficit before winning Game 7 in overtime — a 5-4 comeback victory that is arguably the most memorable game in the history of the franchise.
DeBoer and Gallant got into a war of words during the series. The day before Game 7, DeBoer said Gallant was chirping at his players — Logan Couture in particular — after Gallant felt Couture embellished a play to draw a penalty.
Gallant vehemently denied DeBoer’s accusation, saying in part, “For that clown to say that in the paper yesterday, it’s not right.”
Gallant, 56, went 118-7520 in two-plus years as Vegas’
coach. After eliminating the Sharks from the playoffs in 2018, he and the Golden Knights later advanced to the Stanley Cup Final before they lost to the Washington Capitals.
The Golden Knights also fired assistant coach Mike Kelly, although it was unknown if DeBoer was going to bring his assistants from San Jose to Vegas. Steve Spott, Johan Hedberg and Dave Barr were also relieved of their duties by general manager Doug Wilson on Dec. 11.
• The Sharks are 6-7-2 under Boughner, but their slim playoff hopes took a hit on a 6-3 loss at Arizona on Tuesday night to open a pivotal three-game trip.
The Sharks (21-23-4) tonight face the Colorado Avalanche, the top-scoring team in the Western Conference. Then it’s off to Vancouver on Saturday for a game against the Canucks, the second-highest scoring team in the west.
Those games could get ugly if the Sharks are unable to fix some of the breakdowns that occurred in the loss to Pacific Division-leading Arizona.
Only a handful of saves by goalie Aaron Dell prevented the Coyotes from scoring early in the first period. The Sharks didn’t break out as well or show the same kind of structure they had in wins last week over Columbus and Dallas — their first two games without injured captain and No. 1 center Couture, who will be out for approximately another five weeks with a fracture in his left ankle.
If the Sharks can’t rediscover what made them successful last week in their first two games without Couture, then this road trip might mark the beginning of the end of whatever playoff hopes remain.
“This (was) a big game for us,” Boughner said. “We got away from how we’ve played in the last couple weeks. It’s one of those games where we’ve got to make some corrections (Wednesday) and come out a little more structured against Colorado.”