BUFFALO — That didn\u2019t take long, did it?<\/p>\n
Exactly one week after Peter DeBoer in a phone interview told NHL.com \u201cI\u2019m ready\u201d to get back behind an NHL bench, he\u2019s going to be doing exactly that.<\/p>\n
For the second consecutive Sunday a coach was fired in yet another shocking turn of events, given how late in the regular season it is.<\/p>\n
On March 29, Bruce Cassidy, who led the Vegas Golden Knights to the Stanley Cup in 2023, was axed by the franchise and replaced by veteran bench boss John Tortorella.<\/p>\n
Seven days later, another unexpected move: the New York Islanders, in the middle of the race to the Stanley Cup Playoffs in the Eastern Conference and with just four games remaining, fired coach Patrick Roy and brought in DeBoer.<\/p>\n
Why now?<\/p>\n
Look at it this way: DeBoer, with a combined 759 career NHL wins in the regular season and playoffs, was going to be a coveted commodity for teams looking for coaches during the offseason. That\u2019s a fact.<\/p>\n
For example, with the Toronto Maple Leafs already having fired general manager Brad Treliving last week, there have been plenty of questions as to whether coach Craig Berube would be next.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If so, DeBoer would have been a natural candidate based on regional bias alone. He\u2019s a southern Ontario native from the town of Dunville, 85 miles south of Toronto near Lake Erie, and enjoyed \u00a0a successful career as the coach of nearby Kitchener of the Ontario Hockey League, leading the Rangers to the Memorial Cup in 2003.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s just one example of the possible landing spots DeBoer potentially could have had during the summer. The Nashville Predators are making front office changes that could alter their coaching situation. And what happens to interim coach D.J. Smith if the Los Angeles Kings don\u2019t reach the playoffs?<\/p>\n
Such speculation is all moot now.<\/p>\n
Because what the Islanders did was beat everyone else to the punch.<\/p>\n
As a result, DeBoer lands his sixth NHL coaching job, following gigs with the Florida Panthers (2008-11), New Jersey Devils (2011-14), San Jose Sharks (2015-19), Vegas Golden Knights (2019-22) and Dallas Stars (2022-25).\u00a0<\/p>\n
In lieu of the interesting goings-on on Sunday, here are three interesting facts and observations of the DeBoer-Islanders situation you may or may not have known.<\/p>\n
1. The Wanted Man<\/p>\n
Teams already had inquired about DeBoer’s availability prior to the 2026 Winter Olympics, where he served as an assistant to Jon Cooper with Team Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had multiple teams, what I would call kicking tires and keeping an eye on us,\u201d DeBoer said last week. \u201cI\u2019ll probably leave it at that. I don\u2019t want to get into specifics but there were multiple teams that reached out in different ways to kick tires.\u201d<\/p>\n
Was there ever anything that came close to fruition?<\/p>\n
\u201cListen, you never know how close you are,\u201d he said. \u201cI think there was, you know, at least one situation that was really close that was interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
2. The Lou Connection<\/p>\n
There were plenty of eyebrows raised that the Islanders would relieve Roy of his duties on Easter Sunday.<\/p>\n
Ironically, DeBoer, the man who replaces Roy, was once fired on a special holiday like that himself.<\/p>\n
It happened on Christmas Day 2014 when he got a call from then-Devils GM Lou Lamoriello. The message had nothing to do with season\u2019s greetings.<\/p>\n
It was more like getting a lump of coal dumped into your stocking.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did wait until late in the day before he fired me. We were well past the presents,\u201d DeBoer laughed during an interview we did in 2016.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even after Lamoriello\u2019s Grinch-like actions, DeBoer considers him a friend and mentor.<\/p>\n
\u201cLou\u2019s played a huge role in my coaching development,\u201d DeBoer said. \u201cI loved working for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the intriguing part of the DeBoer-Lamoriello relationship.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A year ago, Lamoriello was dismissed as Islanders general manager and replaced by Mathieu Darche. But that didn\u2019t mean he retired. Indeed, the Hall of Fame builder now serves as an adviser to Islanders owner Scott Malkin.<\/p>\n
Given his friendship with DeBoer, how much may Lamoriello have suggested (nudge-nudge, wink-wink) to Darche and Malkin that the Islanders seriously look at the veteran coach as a long-term solution behind the Islanders bench?<\/p>\n
If he did, you won\u2019t hear it from Lou. When it comes to any hockey team he works or had worked for, Lamoriello is the poster boy for being tight-lipped. Always has been. Always will be.<\/p>\n
3. The Hired Gun<\/p>\n
This is not the first time DeBoer has been airlifted into a job while a season was going on.<\/p>\n
On Jan 15, 2020 he was hired to replace Gerard Gallant as coach of the Golden Knights.<\/p>\n
To say the offer caught him off guard would be an understatement.<\/p>\n
At the time the Golden Knights reached out to him, he was vacationing with his family in Florida and had no formal clothes with him to wear for his first game behind the Vegas bench against the Ottawa Senators in the Canadian capital the following day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thankfully his longtime pal and assistant Steve Spott came to the rescue. DeBoer caught a flight from Florida to Toronto, where Spott picked him up and took him suit shopping before dropping him off back at the airport for his connecting flight to Ottawa.<\/p>\n
Not only did the Golden Knights subsequently reward him by beating the Sens 4-2 in his Vegas debut, he had some spiffy duds to wear to celebrate the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201c’Spotter\u2019s always been there for me,\u201d DeBoer said of Spott, who\u2019s now an assistant with the Boston Bruins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO — That didn\u2019t take long, did it? Exactly one week after Peter DeBoer in a phone interview…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5110],"tags":[5,122,3328,159,5190,5189,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-543223","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-islanders","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-islanders","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-islanders","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkislanders","14":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116355811530506505","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}