“Deliberated on this long and hard” – Peter DeBoer fired as Vegas Golden Knights coach after three seasons


“Deliberated on this long and hard” – Peter DeBoer fired as Vegas Golden Knights coach after three seasons

Peter DeBoer

The Vegas Golden Knights fired Peter DeBoer as coach on Monday. This decision came after the Golden Knights (43-31-8) finished three points behind the Nashville Predators for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.

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As a result, Mark Stone and his men failed to qualify for the postseason for the first time since joining the National Hockey League (NHL) as an expansion team in 2017-18. Vegas was 98-50-12 in three seasons under DeBoer, who was hired as a replacement for Gerard Gallant in January 2020.

We deliberated on this long and hard,” Golden Knights general manager Kelly McCrimmon said, as quoted by NHL.com. “We did not make this decision quickly. And once [president of hockey operations] George [McPhee] and I were aligned in terms of what we thought the best course of action would be, we met with our owner, Bill Foley, late last week. Bill offered his support for our decision.”

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“Decision was made based on next year”

Peter DeBoer
Peter DeBoer

McCrimmon also highlighted the long off-season break available for his side to recharge and rehab after a season derailed by injuries and inconsistency. He also went on to state that missing out on the playoffs was “humbling”.

We’ve got a 4 1/2-month offseason, which I think is going to be extremely important for our group,” McCrimmon said. “We missed the playoffs, which is humbling for a team no matter what the reasons were for how that happened, and I think what it’s going to give us is an opportunity in the fall to be incredibly rested, rehabbed, recharged, excited, and as we went through it, I felt that we could enhance that by having a new voice leading our team into next season. The decision was made based on next year. The decision was not made based on [2021-22].”

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