Pete DeBoer was one of the more successful coaches the Stars have had in terms of regular season and postseason success, but he was still fired after three seasons with the team.
Following the Stars’ third consecutive Western Conference finals exit, Stars GM Jim Nill surprisingly decided to make a change behind the bench in Dallas.
In an interview with NHL.com, DeBoer said he understood why the decision was made.
“Look, if we’d made the first round my first year, the second round my second and then the third round in the third, you could say we were making progress,” he said. “But getting to the third round three straight years, we weren’t able to get over the hump. I get it.”
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Was DeBoer a victim of his own success? To his point, the optics of making deep runs but repeatedly failing at the same stage of the playoffs probably didn’t help things.
Nill said regardless of how things ended in Dallas, there are no hard feelings.
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“Pete did a great job for us in three years.,” Nill told NHL.com. “The results speak for themselves.”
What’s next for DeBoer?
The problem he ran into was by the time the Stars were eliminated from the playoffs, and especially by the time Dallas decided to part ways with him, all of the vacant head coaching positions in the league were filled. This is about the time of year he would be preparing for training camp, but for the first time in a long time, the 58-year-old coach isn’t doing that, a feeling he described to NHL.com as “weird.”
In the meantime, his responsibilities with Canada’s Olympic hockey team will ramp up with the 2026 Olympic Winter Games around the corner. DeBoer said as soon as the Stars fired him, Doug Armstrong, the Blues GM who also oversees the Canadian Olympic team, called him to assure him his role with the Canadian team was safe and would even increase.
“Jon Cooper called me too,” DeBoer said. “It was really meaningful to me. Both told me, ‘You know what? This doesn’t affect anything that we’re doing. Regardless of what happens here, we’re going to make sure we keep you busy. And this actually might be a big benefit for Team Canada, and that you’re going to have the time to concentrate on Olympic things maybe we don’t have because we’re dealing with our NHL teams every day.”’
Armstrong gave DeBoer a vote of confidence for his future as a head coach in the NHL, too.
“Pete is an outstanding coach and when one door closed in Dallas, the Olympic door opened wider,” Armstrong said. “With Pete’s resume he will be on everyone’s short list when an NHL job becomes available. Until then we will fully immerse him in our preparations for the 2026 Olympics.”
Every year, a handful of head coaching jobs come open in the NHL. DeBoer will surely be one of the hottest names during the upcoming coaching cycle. Whenever that opportunity comes, he believes he will be ready for it.
“I’m very confident with my ability to come in and get a team on the same page and play the right way and being able to win in the playoffs,” he said. “Again, my confidence in being able to do that is really high.
“Am I thinking about that right now? No, I’m thinking about the Olympics right now. But that doesn’t mean if the phone rings, that a switch doesn’t go off in my head and that changes.”
Regardless of when his next coaching opportunity arises, he made one thing clear: He’s done talking about his Stars tenure.
“I’m not doing any more interviews on this,” he said. “If anyone asks about the subject, I’m going to refer them to this one. It’s time to look ahead and move forward.”
Only time will tell if Nill made the right call to let DeBoer go. But in the meantime, DeBoer has his sights set on the Olympics with Team Canada and the Stars have their sights set on a Stanley Cup run with new coach Glen Gulutzan.
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