Zizing ‘Em Up: Islanders hire DeBoer with playoff hopes on line

NHL.com staff writer Mike Zeisberger has been covering the NHL regularly since 1999. Each Monday he will use his extensive network of hockey contacts for his weekly notes column, "Zizing 'Em Up.”

BUFFALO -- That didn’t take long, did it?

Exactly one week after Peter DeBoer in a phone interview told NHL.com “I’m ready” to get back behind an NHL bench, he’s going to be doing exactly that.

For the second consecutive Sunday, a coach was fired in yet another shocking turn of events, given how late in the regular season it is.

On March 29, Bruce Cassidy, who led the Vegas Golden Knights to the Stanley Cup in 2023, was axed by the franchise and replaced by veteran bench boss John Tortorella.

Seven days later, another unexpected move. The New York Islanders, in the middle of the race to the Stanley Cup Playoffs in the Eastern Conference and with just four games remaining, fired coach Patrick Roy and brought in DeBoer.

Why now?

Look at it this way: DeBoer, with a combined 759 career NHL wins in the regular season and playoffs, was going to be a coveted commodity for teams looking for coaches during the offseason. That’s a fact.

For example, with the Toronto Maple Leafs already having fired general manager Brad Treliving last week, there have been plenty of questions as to whether coach Craig Berube would be next. 

If so, DeBoer would have been a natural candidate based on regional bias alone. He’s a southern Ontario native from the town of Dunville, 85 miles south of Toronto near Lake Erie, and enjoyed  a successful career as the coach of nearby Kitchener of the Ontario Hockey League, leading the Rangers to the Memorial Cup in 2003.

That’s just one example of the possible landing spots DeBoer potentially could have had during the summer. The Nashville Predators are making front office changes that could alter their coaching situation. And what happens to interim coach D.J. Smith if the Los Angeles Kings don’t reach the playoffs?

Such speculation is all moot now, because what the Islanders did was beat everyone else to the punch.

As a result, DeBoer lands his sixth NHL coaching job, following gigs with the Florida Panthers (2008-11), New Jersey Devils (2011-14), San Jose Sharks (2015-19), Vegas Golden Knights (2019-22) and Dallas Stars (2022-25). 

In lieu of the interesting goings-on on Sunday, here are three interesting facts and observations of the DeBoer-Islanders situation you may or may not have known.

1. The Wanted Man

Teams already had inquired about DeBoer's availability prior to the 2026 Winter Olympics, where he served as an assistant to Jon Cooper with Team Canada.

“I had multiple teams, what I would call kicking tires and keeping an eye on us,” DeBoer said last week. “I’ll probably leave it at that. I don’t want to get into specifics but there were multiple teams that reached out in different ways to kick tires.”

Was there ever anything that came close to fruition?

“Listen, you never know how close you are,” he said. “I think there was, you know, at least one situation that was really close that was interesting.”

2. The Lou Connection

There were plenty of eyebrows raised that the Islanders would relieve Roy of his duties on Easter Sunday.

Ironically, DeBoer, the man who replaces Roy, was once fired on a special holiday like that himself.

It happened on Christmas Day 2014 when he got a call from then-Devils GM Lou Lamoriello. The message had nothing to do with season’s greetings.

It was more like getting a lump of coal dumped into your stocking.

“He did wait until late in the day before he fired me. We were well past the presents,” DeBoer laughed during an interview we did in 2016. 

Even after Lamoriello’s Grinch-like actions, DeBoer considers him a friend and mentor.

“Lou’s played a huge role in my coaching development,” DeBoer said. “I loved working for him.”

Here’s the intriguing part of the DeBoer-Lamoriello relationship. 

A year ago, Lamoriello's contract was not renewed by the Islanders and he was replaced as general manager by Mathieu Darche. But that didn’t mean he retired. Indeed, the Hall of Fame builder now serves as an adviser to Islanders owner Scott Malkin.

Given his friendship with DeBoer, how much may Lamoriello have suggested (nudge-nudge, wink-wink) to Darche and Malkin that the Islanders seriously look at the veteran coach as a long-term solution behind the Islanders bench?

If he did, you won’t hear it from Lou. When it comes to any hockey team he works or had worked for, Lamoriello is the poster boy for being tight-lipped. Always has been. Always will be.

3. The Hired Gun

This is not the first time DeBoer has been airlifted into a job while a season was going on.

On Jan 15, 2020, he was hired to replace Gerard Gallant as coach of the Golden Knights.

To say the offer caught him off guard would be an understatement.

At the time the Golden Knights reached out to him, he was vacationing with his family in Florida and had no formal clothes with him to wear for his first game behind the Vegas bench against the Ottawa Senators in the Canadian capital the following day. 

Thankfully, his longtime pal and assistant Steve Spott came to the rescue. DeBoer caught a flight from Florida to Toronto, where Spott picked him up and took him suit shopping before dropping him off back at the airport for his connecting flight to Ottawa.

Not only did the Golden Knights subsequently reward him by beating the Sens 4-2 in his Vegas debut, he had some spiffy duds to wear to celebrate the moment.

“'Spotter’s always been there for me,” DeBoer said of Spott, who’s now an assistant with the Boston Bruins.

BOLTS-KNIVES II: THE REMATCH

It was arguably “The Game” of the NHL season.

And now, less than a month later, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Buffalo Sabres are coming back for more.

On March 8, the two Atlantic Division rivals combined for 15 goals, 28 penalties, 102 penalty minutes and 10 fighting majors. Lightning forward Brandon Hagel received a $5,000 fine from the NHL for his actions as the aggressor of an altercation with Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin.

In the end, the 8-7 comeback victory by the Sabres at KeyBank Center had fans singing as they exited the arena as if it had been a Stanley Cup Playoff game. In fact, many of the players said it felt exactly like that. 

On Monday they meet again in the same venue, both teams already having clinched playoff berths on Saturday.

For the Sabres, it’s the first time they’ve qualified for the postseason since 2011, ending an NHL-record 14 season drought.

That, in itself, is a recipe for an electric atmosphere in the building.

Add in the fact that the visitors will be the rival Lightning, who lead the Sabres by two points atop the Atlantic Division, and the atmosphere should be off the charts, both on the ice and in the stands.

With his team mired in a two-game losing streak, including a 6-2 loss against the Washington Capitals Saturday, Buffalo center Tage Thompson said the heated emotions of seeing the Lightning again might be the spark his team needs, regardless of the city’s euphoria about the Sabres being in the postseason again after a 15-year absence.

“Hell of a team,” Thompson said of the Lightning, adding that if the Sabres play like they did against the Capitals “they're going to run us over, run us out of our own building.

“So, hopefully, getting back to the KeyBank Center gives us a little bit of a jolt that we need. We’re going to come out with a lot of passion, a lot of energy and we're going to try to take it to them.”

Asked if he thinks the building will be nuts, Dahlin replied: “Yeah, it's a good thing. We've got to be ready for that game, so it’s going to be a fun match.”

For Lightning coach Jon Cooper, there is plenty of motivation, even with the team having already punched its ticket into the playoffs.

"We need to just keep our habits,” he said. "The reason we have 102 points is we've been doing, for the most part, we do a lot of things well and the way we want them done and that's what we need to do. 

“So it shouldn't be going out there taking nights off ... that stuff can't happen.”

Maybe not. But expect plenty of other “stuff” to happen when these two teams step on the ice Monday, memories of last month’s grudge match still fresh in their minds.

WHO’S HOT

F Brady Tkachuk, Ottawa Senators

The Senators captain has seven points (three goals, four assists) in his past seven games, none more important than the two goals he scored in Ottawa’s 5-3 victory against the visiting Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday. The victory allowed the Senators to hold onto the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference, one point ahead of the Islanders with a game in hand. Tkachuk is the heart and soul of the Senators, who are trying to qualify for the postseason in back-to-back years for the first time since 2012 and 2013. When Tkachuk is flashing his special combination of hustle and muscle like he is right now, Ottawa certainly has the potential to be a handful.

QUOTE/UNQUOTE

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I mean, I was in junior high school the last time they made the playoffs. Now I’m working my way towards retirement.” -- A laughing customs official at the Rainbow Bridge, between Niagara Falls, Ontario, and Niagara Falls, New York, joking Sunday about the Sabres reaching the postseason for the first time since 2011, ending a 15-year dry spell

THE LAST WORD

Scott Oake has always shot from the lip.

Which is why the wry way he announced his own retirement on "Hockey Night In Canada’s" After Hours on Saturday night was so fitting.

“As I've said to more than a few people, '50-plus years in this business is more than anyone should have to take of me,’” Oake told viewers coast-to-coast. “And frankly, ladies and gentlemen, it's just about all I can take of myself.”

Truth be told, Oake was never hard to take. In fact, his dry wit, coupled with his outstanding ability to make subjects feel comfortable and candid during interviews, made him a hockey broadcasting icon north of the border since joining HNIC in the 1980s.

But he’s more than that.

Consider that Oake has been honored as a member of the Order of Manitoba and Order of Canada, the highest civilian honors in the province and country. 

He also founded the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre in Winnipeg following his son Bruce’s overdose death in 2011. To that end, he authored a memoir last year about addiction, loss, love and hope entitled “For the Love of a Son.”

His youngest son, Darcy, is a noted magician and was invited to perform during Queen Elizabeth II's 90th birthday celebrations at a private event in Windsor Castle in 2016.

On a personal note, Oake, whose final appearance will come this Saturday on After Hours, is someone who always took time to show the ropes to a young aspiring hockey writer. That’s something you don’t forget.

As Hall of Fame defenseman Chris Pronger so aptly summed up on X: “A pros pro. Scott Oake has played a huge part of my hockey coverage over his career. What an incredible run. Wishing you all the best in retirement @ScottOake Appreciate you my friend.” 

Seconded.