Dallas Stars fire coach Pete DeBoer after losing in West final and pulling Oettinger

DALLAS (AP) — Dallas Stars coach Pete DeBoer was fired Friday after three seasons with the team, getting to the Western Conference final each time but never advancing past that for a shot at the Stanley Cup.

The move came less than a week since the Stars ended their season in a 6-3 loss at home to Edmonton in Game 5 of the West final.

DeBoer made the curious and much-discussed decision to bench Jake Oettinger after his star goalie gave up two goals on two shots in the first 7:09.

Two days later, the coach acknowledged he still hadn’t talked to Oettinger about that decision.

“After careful consideration, we believe that a new voice is needed in our locker room to push us closer to our goal of winning the Stanley Cup,” longtime general manager Jim Nill said.

The Oilers won four consecutive games in the series after the Stars had a five-goal outburst in the third period of Game 1 to win by that same 6-3 score.

Dallas became the first team to reach the conference finals three seasons in a row without winning at least one Cup title under the playoff format that began in 1994. The Stars didn’t even give themselves a chance to play for one.

DeBoer, who turns 57 this month, had a 149-68-29 record in regular-season games and 22-17 in the playoffs with the Stars, whose 113 points during the 2023-24 season were just one off the franchise record set by their only Stanley Cup-winning team in 1998-99. He is 662-447-152 overall in 17 seasons with Dallas, New Jersey, Florida, Vegas and San Jose, plus 97-82 in 10 postseason appearances.

Stars owner Tom Gaglardi said the day after the season finale that DeBoer was a seasoned coach, top three to top five in the league, and that he didn’t see firing DeBoer being on anyone’s agenda.

Something certainly changed since then with DeBoer, who had one season remaining on his contract.

This was the sixth time in seven seasons, with three different teams, that DeBoer took a team to the brink of the Stanley Cup Final. That included the NHL semifinals during the 2021 season with Vegas when there were no conference-based playoffs because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Stars last went to the Stanley Cup Final in 2020, the playoff held in the bubble in Canada because of the pandemic. They won the West final that year in five games over DeBoer-coached Vegas. Dallas was led by Rick Bowness, who replaced the fired Jim Montgomery during the season. DeBoer was hired after the Stars moved on from Bowness.

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AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno in Edmonton, Alberta, contributed to this report.

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl