The Devils were bracing to experience the wrath of new head coach Pete DeBoer like never before. They had just blown a 3-0 lead after the first period and lost, 4-3, to the Florida Panthers, the team that had fired DeBoer following last season.
Prior to the Nov. 21 game, DeBoer made no secret of his desire to beat the Panthers. Saddled with a roster of primarily young players, he posted a 103-107 record in three frustrating seasons in South Florida in his first NHL head-coaching job, which followed 13 seasons as a highly respected junior coach.
After a dejected Devils team boarded the bus to head to the airport, DeBoer addressed them. It was his 19th game as their coach.
“He easily could’ve snapped, easily,” captain Zach Parise recalled recently. “We were all upset for losing the game. We all wanted to win the game for Pete. You get fired by a team or you get traded, you want to beat that team.
“So he gets up on the bus and says, ‘Hey, that happens to every single team in the NHL once or twice a year. It happened to us tonight. Let’s not let it happen again.’ And that was it. He never talked about it again.
“We were all like, ‘This guy gets it. He understands.’ We all knew we stunk that night and let’s move on.”
I remember DF and myself both pushing for DeBoer the second he got canned from Florida. His system is similar to the one Sutter ran a couple of years ago but the only difference is that our blueliners are more involved offensively (aka pinching) and that's something I've wanted for years now. I just didn't understand the need to backpeddle away from the offensive zone as soon as our forwards fumbled/lost the puck.
Having stability behind the bench is something we haven't had in ages. It's a nice feeling to have.
How he stayed that calm is beyond me. I would've ***** slapped somebody if I was coaching a team that choked away a 3-goal lead against my previous team.
Everybody on HF should be forced to read that and yes folks we still play the trap.
It's a myth we'll never escape. I'm convinced of that now. It is an immutable law of HF consciousness: "If the Devils are successful, they must be playing the trap and their games are boring."
Well let's not jump too quickly the other way either. DeBoer is a good coach, and I think he will be here for a while, but I want to see how his team performs in the playoffs before I am fully confident in him returning long term.
Well let's not jump too quickly the other way either. DeBoer is a good coach, and I think he will be here for a while, but I want to see how his team performs in the playoffs before I am fully confident in him returning long term.
As long as he does not change systems in the playoffs(Sutter) and we fix our 3rd period problems i think will surprise alot of people
