Dallas Stars fire head coach Pete DeBoer after second consecutive playoff loss to Oilers

DeBoer had one year left on his contract, which had seen him initially join the team in 2022-23. He helped push the Stars to be a consistently strong regular-season team, posting three straight seasons with 106 or more points in the standings. And while he would also get the Stars to the Western Conference Final in all three years, all three of them saw Dallas fizzle out, losing to the Vegas Golden Knights in the first year and the Oilers in each of the last two.

This season saw the Stars take a 1-0 series lead over the Oilers, only to drop four straight games, with Edmonton dominating the series. He put himself in the spotlight multiple times in the series, first making his feelings known after Darnell Nurse’s slash broke Roope Hintz’ foot, saying, “Does anyone in this room think that if Connor McDavid gets carried off the ice like that, that it’s not a five-minute major?”

When Evan Bouchard took a whack at Hintz’ injured foot in Game 4, DeBoer said it was something “You don’t see that much outside of junior hockey.”

Ultimately, these weren’t the comments that cost him his job: it was the ones after the series ended. After the Oilers scored two goals on their first two shots in Game 5, DeBoer made the shocking move to pull netminder Jake Oettinger, throwing Casey DeSmith too the wolves. While Dallas had some push, it was too little too late.

“I didn’t blame it all on Jake, but the reality is if you go back to last year’s playoffs, he’s lost six of seven games to Edmonton,” said DeBoer. “And we give up two goals on two shots in an elimination game. It was partly to spark our team and wake them up, but also knowing that the status quo had not been working. That’s a pretty big sample size.”

Now, Dallas will look to figure out what’s next. The team acquired and signed Mikko Rantanen to an eight-year deal ahead of the trade deadline, with other key pieces in their core locked up long term, including Oettinger, who’s eight-year deal kicks in next season along with five year deals for Wyatt Johnston and Esa Lindell. Miro Heiskanen (three years left), and Roope Hintz (five years left) also have years left on their deals.