How will Peter DeBoer impact the Islanders?

Pete DeBoer was hired by the New York Islanders with just a few games to go in the 2025-26 regular season, and while some may have seen it as a way to spark a club whose goal was to make the playoffs, others saw it as the Isles getting ahead of the other teams in the league who would look to hire a new bench boss in the offseason.

Now with a full training camp and preseason under his belt, DeBoer hopes to find the same first (full) season of success he’s found with his previous NHL clubs.

On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton are joined by former NHL video coach Steve Peters for the latest “Film Room” segment, where they discuss DeBoer’s past accomplishments and what he brings to the table on Long Island.

Carter Hutton: DeBoer has now had a full summer and a full training camp. What effect is DeBoer going to have on a new group? What does he do well as a coach that’s going to help the Islanders?

Steve Peters: One of those things he’s going to bring to the Islanders is structure: he’s a really well-structured coach, his teams play with pace, they score a lot of goals and have a lot of offense. It’s a lot different than the way Patrick Roy coached; Roy was a passionate guy, he brings his passion to the game, and that can be difficult for players when you get the highs and lows behind the bench.

But if you look at their “goals for” under Roy, and they were 29th during their last two seasons with him as coach. If you go to DeBoer during his last three years with the Dallas Stars, they were third in “goals for.”

The other thing DeBoer does is he wins, and he wins in his first year. If you look at his time with the New Jersey Devils and the San Jose Sharks, they made it to the Stanley Cup Final. In his first year with the Vegas Golden Knights and Stars, respectively, they made it to the Western Conference Final.

So I really believe he is going to make a difference for this Islanders team. Now, are they strong enough roster-wise and deep enough to put up those numbers? I think there’s a lot of skill there, but this is a reach to climb that far in one season. I think it’s positive, they’ll be more offensive and more fun to watch, but this is a tough go in the Eastern Conference.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…