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New Jersey Devils Fire Head Coach Pete DeBoer

By Vinnie Criscenzo

Mar 20, 2014; Newark, NJ, USA; New Jersey Devils head coach Peter DeBoer looks on from behind the bench against the Minnesota Wild during the first period at the Prudential Center. Mandatory Credit: Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 20, 2014; Newark, NJ, USA; New Jersey Devils head coach Peter DeBoer looks on from behind the bench against the Minnesota Wild during the first period at the Prudential Center. Mandatory Credit: Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports /
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The New Jersey Devils have relieved Pete Deboer of his head coaching duties.

Well, I hope Mr. DeBoer got what he wanted for Christmas, because he sure didn’t get what he wanted the day after Christmas.

Early Friday afternoon, TSN’s Bob McKenzie reported that the New Jersey Devils have fired head coach Pete DeBoer in his fourth season coaching the team.

While a lot of people are probably wondering why this hasn’t happened much sooner, I’m actually quite surprised by this. General manager Lou Lamoriello seemed to indicate recently that a coaching change was completely out of the question, and players such as Jaromir Jagr said that it would be the worst decision that they could make (firing DeBoer).

However, with the Devils entering the Christmas break with a 12-17-7 record and sitting 14th in the eastern conference, Lou felt that something had to change and fast. The Devils are on pace to miss the playoffs for the third time in a row and fourth time in the past 5 seasons. The one year being their impressive run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2012 before losing to the Los Angeles Kings in 6 games.

That season, I believe, bought DeBoer some time. If it weren’t for that season, I don’t think DeBoer would have lasted this long. It was his first season as head coach and he led the team all the way to the Cup final. He also had a much better roster to work with back then, having the likes of Ilya Kovalchuk and Zach Parise still on the team.

DeBoer will exit with a 114-93-41 record as head coach of the Devils. That doesn’t seem that terrible. Well, if you take out that 2011-12 season, DeBoer is a disastrous 66-65-35 since then.

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I don’t think DeBoer deserves all the blame, though. DeBoer was hired when the Devils had a stacked lineup with Parise and Kovalchuk, but then Parise left after DeBoer’s first season and Kovalchuk the year after. Those aren’t holes you can fill in just a couple years. He has also been dealing with an unprecedented amount of injuries to the team this season. There have been as much as 7 starters out of the lineup at once at certain times this season, and haven’t been fully healthy since the first couple weeks of the season.

While all these are true, there is still no reason they should be as bad as they are right now. The team has been getting dramatically out-shot each game and the team seems to have no cohesion whatsoever on offense and look lost at times in their defensive end.

While DeBoer shouldn’t take all of the blame for the position the team is in, it was a necessary move. It was a completely different team when DeBoer was hired, and it just seems like his system doesn’t fit this team anymore.

Who will take over behind the bench for the remainder of the season has yet to be seen. Paging Jacques Lemaire.

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