The NHL’s coaching carousel spins fast once again, with seven teams changing bench bosses after their season ended.
After the Pittsburgh Penguins hired Dan Muse, there’s only one coaching vacancy left – but there may be a second coming in short order, depending on what happens with the Dallas Stars.
The Boston Bruins are the only team without a coach right now, after Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported he believes interim bench boss Joe Sacco is out of the running for the job.
Soon enough, the Dallas Stars could be in need of a new coach if they fire veteran Peter DeBoer.
If you’re a Bruins fan who saw DeBoer throw Stars goalie Jake Oettinger under the bus in the wake of Dallas’ third-round loss to the Edmonton Oilers and read the reports that players spoke out against him in exit interviews, you shouldn’t want your team to wait and see what happens with DeBoer before deciding on your next coach.
Now, DeBoer has carved out a very nice NHL coaching career. In 17 seasons, he’s coached 1,261 regular-season games, posting a 662-447-152 record in that span. And he’s guided the five teams he’s coached – the Florida Panthers, New Jersey Devils, San Jose Sharks, Vegas Golden Knights and Stars – to 10 playoff appearances. You don’t get that many chances to coach in hockey’s top league if you don’t know what you’re doing.
But DeBoer’s experience doesn’t mean he’s the best choice for the Bruins’ job.
DeBoer still hasn’t won a Stanley Cup, and after his first season getting the Devils to the Cup final in 2011-12, he hasn’t gotten his team past the conference final. If he were a player, he’d be considered a journeyman by now – and you can’t convince us that DeBoer should be gifted with another job once the Stars let him go simply because he’s been around for a long time.
Just like what Pittsburgh did by hiring Muse instead of seeing if DeBoer becomes available, hiring a first-time coach is the better solution for Boston.
Look at the Washington Capitals. When they changed coaches last season, they went with a rookie NHL coach in Spencer Carbery, and it paid off spectacularly. The Caps got into the playoffs in Carbery’s first season in D.C., and they were the top regular-season team in the Eastern Conference this season. Carbery didn’t have a long resume to point to, but he was the right choice for the job, and the Caps are better today for it.
This is why someone like Mitch Love, who’s currently an assistant coach with Washington, would be a much better choice for the Bruins.
Rather than giving someone like DeBoer who is, frankly, a retread, why not give an opportunity to a highly-regarded young coach like Love or AHL Ontario bench boss Marco Sturm? There’s no guarantee any coach works out the way a team hopes they will, but a fresh voice with something to prove could work wonders for Boston.
Certainly, things have soured in a hurry for DeBoer in Dallas. His poor choice of words for Oettinger – the Stars’ goalie of the present and the future – means he’s drawn a line in the sand.
But the Bruins hiring DeBoer isn’t a situation like the one that saw the St. Louis Blues fire coach Drew Bannister once Jim Montgomery was fired by the Bruins. Montgomery is still relatively early in his NHL coaching career, and he was rightfully voted as the 2023 winner of the Jack Adams Award as the league’s top coach. You can’t say either thing about DeBoer at this stage.
The league clearly values coaching experience, and DeBoer has plenty of that. But there’s something to be said for a coach who hasn’t had a golden opportunity put in front of them yet. There’s a hunger there and a drive that might not be there for someone who would be on his sixth different NHL team.
So yes, if you’re a Bruins fan, you don’t want your team to bring in DeBoer. Starting a new era often means starting with someone who hasn’t had the chances other people have had, and we’d rather see someone like Love implementing a new vision than someone like DeBoer swinging and missing yet again.
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