{"id":549243,"date":"2026-04-10T04:01:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/549243\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T04:01:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:01:02","slug":"pete-deboers-islanders-found-some-fight-after-hard-look-in-mirror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/549243\/","title":{"rendered":"Pete DeBoer&#8217;s Islanders found some fight after hard look in mirror"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The biggest motivator Pete DeBoer saw from his new team on Thursday night, the biggest reason he felt their willingness to buy in, was something he did not give them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt came from a place of, they were disappointed that a coach got fired,\u201d DeBoer said after his first game behind the Islanders\u2019 bench<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/09\/sports\/islanders-snag-big-win-over-maple-leafs-to-boost-playoff-hopes-in-pete-deboers-debut\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> ended 5-3 over the Maple Leafs<\/a>. \u201cAnd I think they looked in the mirror, and they owned their part of that. And I think to their credit, when you have character and you feel that way, it\u2019s how you respond to that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had a group all week that was really embracing and ready for a response because they felt bad about what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39044864\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/toronto-maple-leafs-vs-new-125345677.jpg\" alt=\"New York Islanders head coach Peter DeBoer speaks to the media at UBS Arena.\" class=\"wp-image-39044864\"  \/>Head coach Peter DeBoer speaks to the media following the Islanders\u2019 5-3 victory over Maple Leafs at UBS Arena on April 9, 2026. Heather Khalifa for NY Post<\/p>\n<p>If you spent the last few days trying to understand why Mathieu Darche made this move now, why he did not wait until the offseason, then that is \u2014 indirectly \u2014 your answer. Cal Ritchie put it in starker terms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The biggest motivator Pete DeBoer saw from his new team on Thursday night, the biggest reason he felt&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5110],"tags":[5,122,3328,159,5190,5189,4,2087,43,350,336],"class_list":{"0":"post-549243","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","15":"tag-pete-deboer","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-sports-columnists","18":"tag-sports-plus"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116378423851532512","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549243","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=549243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}