Embrace the unknown: Stars’ head coach search opens door to intriguing potential

The “pre-offseason” period of the hockey calendar always fascinates me.

For 16 teams, it began two months ago. That’s provided ample time for each front office to make personnel changes, sweat out the NHL Draft Lottery, discuss draft prospects and free agents, and hopefully take the first step in leading their team back to the Stanley Cup Playoffs. At this point, they are simply waiting to put all of their preparation into motion in a few weeks.

For 14 others, it’s been a staggered assimilation. They have trickled in over the past 40 days, each one with a slightly different perspective. Some were tabbed as longshots in the preseason but caught everyone by surprise with a playoff berth. Others were preseason favorites and fell a round or two short of expectations. And while they have less time than the non-playoff clubs to prepare for offseason chaos, they also have less to fix.

Mix in a swarm of fans studying free agent lists and top draft prospects in an attempt to armchair GM their favorite team to the top of the mountain in 2026. Oh, and this is all going on while the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers are still determining the ultimate winner for 2025.

It’s crazy how 32 NHL teams can be in such different spots on the road through the summer. But none currently sit at a mile marker as unique as the Dallas Stars.

Just 12 days after falling to the Oilers in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final, the Stars are in arguably the most peculiar position of Jim Nill’s 12-year tenure as general manager.

After three seasons with head coach Pete DeBoer at the helm that included a 149-68-29 record (the best in the NHL over that span) and three trips to the Western Conference Final, Nill made the difficult decision to fire the coach on Friday morning and begin the search for his replacement.

This is somewhat uncharted territory for the GM. In the past decade, he’s made an offseason coaching change three other times. Each of those instances came on the heels of the team either missing the playoffs (Lindy Ruff in 2017 and Ken Hitchcock in 2018) or getting eliminated in the First Round (Rick Bowness in 2022).

This time around, however, he’s letting go of a coach that helped lead the Stars to the doorstep of the Stanley Cup Final in three consecutive cracks.

“They’re all different and all for different reasons,” Nill said on Friday. “There was a situation where I just didn’t believe in the coach anymore, a situation where he wasn’t the right fit for the team, or a situation where it’s just timing, it doesn’t feel right and we have to move on.”

DeBoer’s impressive track record is one of the reasons Nill picked him over a number of other candidates during a noteworthy NHL coaching carousel in the summer of 2022. His 662 career regular-season wins are 17^th in NHL history. He’s also been to the Third Round an astounding eight times in the past 14 years and done so with four different franchises. No other coach has been more than six times over the span. His 97 playoff wins are also fifth-most all-time.

The caveat, however, is that he’s one of two coaches in the top 16 of career playoff wins without a title. To take it one step further, he’s the only one in the top five without at least three championships.

So, when it comes to debating the potential risk of letting go of a proven coach with the potential reward of bringing in a fresh voice to help this team take the next step, it’s easy to feel conflicted.

“I know there’s a lot of coaches in the NHL that would love to have that resume,” Nill said of DeBoer. “He’s a great coach and he’s disappointed that he hasn’t made it either. But that’s what keeps you going.”

It’s also easy to feel anxious. Could shaking up such a consistent operation in such an aggressive way be harmful to a team that seems so close to achieving greatness? History seems to say no.

You can find recent examples across the hockey world. The Florida Panthers won the Presidents’ Trophy in 2022 but decided not to hire interim head coach Andrew Brunette to the full-time role. Instead, they brought in Paul Maurice. The longtime NHL head coach had over 1,600 games of experience, but had never won a Cup. Fast forward three years and the Panthers have been to the Stanley Cup Final in each year with him at the helm. They currently sit two wins away from a second consecutive title.

The Vegas Golden Knights brought in Bruce Cassidy after missing the playoffs in 2022 and won a Cup the next year. The Blues hired Craig Berube in November 2018 and went from cellar to penthouse over the next seven months on the way to the franchise’s first Cup. Heck, the Oilers hired Kris Knoblauch from Hartford (AHL) in November 2023 and have been to back-to-back finals since.

How about Dallas sports history? The Texas Rangers hired legendary manager Bruce Bochy in October 2022 after six straight years of missing the playoffs and were rewarded with the franchise’s first World Series one year later. In the middle of the 2004-05 season, veteran head coach Don Nelson stepped down from the Dallas Mavericks. They hired rookie coach Avery Johnson and were in the NBA Finals the following spring.

Sometimes, all a really good team needs is the slightest course correction to make history. Nill knows that better than most from his time with the Detroit Red Wings during their dynastic run that lasted a quarter-century.

“We’d lose two years in a row in the Second Round, Third Round or in the finals and everybody wanted to blow it up,” Nill said. “We were too slow, we weren’t big enough, or da da da. I remember Ken [Holland] and I would sit down and say, ‘You know what? This is a pretty good team. Let’s be careful.’ You can go backwards awful quick in this business, so you have to be real careful.”

That’s a good mindset for a team that’s been the third-to-last club standing in each of the past three years. And in terms of potential candidates, the GM frequently used the phrase “open-minded” in his Friday press conference.

That opens the door to a world of possibilities.

Maybe he goes the internal route. Could he promote Alain Nasreddine, who served as New Jersey’s interim head coach in 2019-20 and has a decade of experience behind an NHL bench? What about Misha Donskov, who played a significant role in turning the expansion Vegas Golden Knights into an NHL heavyweight practically overnight? Both intriguing options.

How about Texas Stars head coach Neil Graham? While the 40-year-old’s experience has been built in the ECHL and AHL, his Texas resume includes a 183-140-27-13 record, a division title and winning four playoff series. That includes a trip to the Western Conference Final this season. He’d be the second-youngest coach in the League, but with an experienced support staff around him, the opportunities seem endless.

And how about external options? Peter Laviolette was fired by the New York Rangers in April, just one year removed from winning the Presidents’ Trophy. He has nearly 1,600 games of experience as an NHL head coach and has been to the Stanley Cup Final three times, including winning in 2006 with the Carolina Hurricanes. There’s also Gerard Gallant, who led Vegas to the final in the franchise’s inaugural 2017-18 campaign. Current NHL assistants (and Stars, for that matter) such as Steve Ott and Glen Gulutzan are also on the radar.

For the only NHL team currently in need of a head coach, there seems to be no shortage of qualified candidates. That is equal parts intriguing and invigorating.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie Moneyball is when Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane first meets Yale economics graduate Peter Brand in the Cleveland Indians parking garage. After a winter filled with losing top players like Johnny Damon and Jason Giambi to teams with deeper pockets, Beane is scrambling to keep his team in contention while working with the smallest budget in the league.

Amidst all of the brewing chaos, Brand tells him, “If you want full disclosure, I think it’s a good thing that you got Damon off of your payroll. I think it opens up all kinds of interesting possibilities.”

And so, as the Stars weigh their bench boss options in a timely manner with the draft and free agency just three weeks away, make sure to find a little hope amidst the lingering uncertainty. With a deep roster comprised of top-tier talent, an accomplished assistant coaching staff and a front office determined to take the next step, the next head coach of the Dallas Stars will be stepping into quite an encouraging opportunity.

“It's a decision we have to make and we're very comfortable with our decision,” Nill said. “We look forward to the next step. I'll start the process now of interviewing coaches and go from there.”

This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.

Josh Clark is a writer for DallasStars.com. Follow him on X @Josh_Clark02.