Stars’ DeBoer ready to face his old team
After firing Pete DeBoer as the head coach of the Golden Knights, Vegas general manager Kelly McCrimmon didn’t look toward the past.
“The decision was made based on next year, the decision was not based on last year,” McCrimmon said in a news conference. “I’m not going to be critical of Pete or point out specifics as to why this decision was made. I’ve got a lot of respect for Pete as a man, I’ve got a lot of respect for him as a coach. These decisions are made for the future.”
The future, it seems, can work in funny ways.
DeBoer, now as the head coach of the Dallas Stars, will return to Las Vegas on Friday for the first game of the Western Conference final. He was asked about the storyline after Dallas defeated the Seattle Kraken 2-1 in Game 7 on Monday.
“There’s a lot to unpack there,” he said with a laugh.
On Tuesday, exactly a year to the day after Las Vegas fired him, DeBoer was asked about it again.
“There’s no hiding from the fact that it means a little more, obviously,” DeBoer said. “That would be for anybody in this situation. It happens all the time in the world: You move on from a job and you go to the next job, except now we’re playing in the conference finals.”
Just a small exception there, made more significant by how recent the job change occurred.
DeBoer, who coached the Ontario Hockey League’s Kitchener Rangers to a Memorial Cup victory in 2003, spent three seasons in Las Vegas. In Year 1, he went into the bubble and led the Golden Knights to a Western Conference final appearance, where he lost to the eventual runner-up, the Dallas Stars. The next year was the same story, with Vegas making the semifinals and falling.
Then, in 2022, Vegas — despite high expectations — missed the post-season for the first time in its brief franchise history, coming up four points short of a playoff berth. The team was ravaged by injuries. It had over 500-man games lost during the season, according to Vegas Hockey Now.
“That bled into everything,” DeBoer told SinBin.Vegas. “If we had average health, we would have had 105 points and, if we had average health plus, we would have been competing for a Presidents’ Trophy.”
Instead, DeBoer was fired. Ultimately, the changes worked out for everyone. DeBoer landed in Dallas, and Vegas hired former Boston Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy.
The Stars won all three games against Vegas this season. The last two ended in shootouts. The first was a 4-0 win for Dallas in DeBoer’s first trip back to Las Vegas. He chugged a beer after the win, as is tradition in the Stars locker room after a big win and a big performance.
This return to Las Vegas will be even bigger, though, and DeBoer isn’t shying away from its meaning.
“I think the important thing for me, though, is the hockey, and the focus is on the players,” DeBoer said Tuesday. “It’s not about Pete DeBoer and his history with Vegas. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the players in that room. There are a lot of guys there I loved coaching, and it’ll be a great test for us. But I’m a Dallas Star now. I love our group. I think we’re getting better as the playoffs are going, and it should be a hell of a series.”