BAYFIELD, Ontario — Three months after the fact, Pete DeBoer still has no reservations about pulling Jake Oettinger early in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final between their Dallas Stars and the Edmonton Oilers.
His one regret, however, is how he handled the postgame narrative on that fateful night of May 29, one that put the dour spotlight on the Stars goalie after the 6-3 loss that eliminated Dallas in the third round for a third consecutive season.
“Listen, we were all to blame for coming up short again, and it starts with me,” DeBoer candidly said in an exclusive sitdown with NHL.com, his first public comments since being fired by the Stars on June 6. “It was on me, it was on all the coaches, it was on all the players, it was on the organization as a whole. We all created the disappointment. We were all to blame, not just one guy.
“When all the questions at the postgame press conference were about Jake, I should have redirected the topic to reflect that this wasn’t just about him, this was about all of us. We — and I stress the word ‘we’ — did not get the job done. We were on a run in which we’d lost six of our past seven games against Edmonton in the third round dating back to 2024. In one of my answers, I said he’d lost six of seven to them. But it wasn’t just him. It was all of us. That’s not on just one guy. I should have made that clearer.”
Oettinger agrees, and said as much when informed of DeBoer’s comments while meeting with NHL.com at the NHL/NHLPA North American Player Media Tour in Henderson, Nevada, on Tuesday.
“I mean, I think I feel like he hit the nail on the head,” Oettinger said. “I agree with what his reflection was.
“I’m glad he said what he said.”
And with that, Oettinger politely walked away, down the hallway at America First Center, another in a series of interviews in the books, off to prepare for a new season, a new chapter in his career.
Just like DeBoer is.
* * * *
It is a windy September afternoon in this picturesque town bordering Lake Huron, and Mother Nature is flashing her teeth. From DeBoer’s back deck you can see and hear the angry waves crashing into the normally pristine shoreline.
Indeed, on this day, the deep blue waters are turbulent.
In the same way DeBoer’s past seven months have been.
“You certainly could call it that,” the 58-year-old says. “It’s been some kind of roller coaster ride.”
Normally this time of year he’d be preparing to attend training camp. For much of his adult life that’s what he’s done. As such, he calls not doing it this time around “weird.”
Given his impressive track record, it’s understandable why he feels that way.
In three seasons with Dallas, DeBoer was 149-68-29 and had the best points percentage in the NHL (.665). The Stars were 29-27 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, trailing only the Oilers (34) and Florida Panthers (41) in wins during that time. He is 662-447-152 in 1,261 regular-season games with the Panthers, New Jersey Devils, San Jose Sharks, Vegas Golden Knights and Stars, and 97-82 in the playoffs.
Moreover, DeBoer’s teams made the third round of the playoffs six of the past seven seasons. He’s guided two teams (Devils, 2012; Sharks, 2016) to the Stanley Cup Final. He ranks fourth among active coaches and 17th all-time in regular-season coaching wins; and fifth in all-time postseason victories.
The one blemish on his resume? No Stanley Cup championship. To that end, no coach has more playoff victories without winning the title.
That’s not to say he’s not highly decorated. Anything but.
He’s a two-time coach of the year recipient in the Ontario Hockey League and led Kitchener to the Memorial Cup in 2003. And in February, he was an assistant on coach Jon Cooper’s staff with Canada for the 4 Nations Face-Off, a tournament they ended up winning.
“It was such a high, one of the great moments of my career,” DeBoer said. “And then we got Mikko Rantanen in a trade in Dallas shortly afterward. There was so much momentum. And then, we lost our final eight regular-season games and it was gone.
“Roller coaster,” he repeated.
The Western Conference First Round brought a meeting with the high-flying Colorado Avalanche, a daunting task considering the Stars were without star defenseman Miro Heiskanen and leading scorer Jason Robertson.
Heiskanen had knee surgery Feb. 4 and missed the final 32 games of the regular season and the first 10 games of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Robertson, a 35-goal scorer, suffered a lower-body injury in the final regular-season game and would miss the entire series.
No matter. The Stars eliminated the Avalanche with a 4-2 victory in the deciding game, upping DeBoer’s record in Game 7s to 9-0 and solidifying his nickname as the coaching fraternity’s