A New Voice Was Needed for the Dallas Stars To Succeed
The Dallas Stars are Moving on From Pete DeBoer after clash with Franchise Goalie
The Dallas Stars are moving on from head coach Pete DeBoer as they look for a new voice to guide the franchise back to a Stanley Cup Championship.
Dallas Stars General Manager Jim Nill announced on Friday morning that the team has decided to move on from DeBoer. He cited that a new voice was needed for the locker room to win a championship.
“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.”
It was clear that DeBoer could only get the Stars to the Western Conference Final, and that was it. Dallas had been to the Western Conference Final the past three seasons under DeBoer.
However, he was undone by the decision to pull Jake Oettinger in the Stars Game 5 loss to the Edmonton Oilers and his comments after the team was eliminated, citing Oettinger’s record against the Oilers in the Western Conference Final.
"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 DeBoer did not back done during the Dallas Stars 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 [not], he's a young goalie."
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This is something a coach does not say about the team’s franchise goalie who just signed an eight-year extension to remain in Dallas. Oettinger was all class when asked about it and owned it, but word started making the rounds this past weekend that the team was looking into moving on from Pete DeBoer as the players were not happy not oly with the decision to pull Oettinger in Game 5 but the comments following.
The players got a shot to redeem themselves but the goalie didn’t. That was poor coaching and an emotional decision by the coach who saw the players no-show against the Edmonton Oilers.
For as much success as DeBoer has in the NHL he wears out his welcome pretty quickly. Not to mention he has been the Stanley Cup Final twice with an 0-2 record. It is all well and good he has made eight trips to the Conference Final but he is 2-6 and six in those series.
DeBoer’s only two trips to the Stanley Cup Final were in 2012 with the New Jersey Devils, where he lost in six games to the Los Angeles Kings, and 2016 with the San Jose Sharks, where he lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins in six games. And remember he has a 9-0 record in Game 7.
When the lights are the brightest he gets emotional. Instead of remaining calm and cool, he paniacs. The players needed their number one goalie in between the pipes against the Oilers. But DeBoer did the same thing to Marc-Andre Fleury in Vegas when he coached the Golden Knights favoring Robin Lehner over Fleury.
Fleury’s agent Allan Walsh had a thing or two to say about that on social media. But sometimes things are left better unsaid and that was the case for Pete DeBoer. He has one year left on his deal and with other coaching vaccancies already filled, could this be the last time we see him coaching in the NHL?
And where do the Stars go from here. One of the hot names out there is Jay Woodcroft. Does Jim Nill really recycle another coach from the past or go in a different direction all together.
Nill has built a contender and he knows what is best for the team. Pete DeBoer sealed his fate after Game 5 of the Western Conference Final. It was there where he lost the locker room and not coming up with answers as to why the Dallas Stars lost yet again.
Sometimes a new voice is necessary to get a team over the hump.
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