Gary Lawless: Why did you become a coach?

Pete DeBoer: I never intended on becoming a coach. As a player, everyone wants to play in the NHL. I was fortunate enough when I got drafted to junior to go to Windsor where I was surrounded by some great people. Adam Graves, Paul Maurice was our captain, Jim Rutherford was our general manager and Tommy Webster was our coach. All of them ended up having years of NHL experience. It was the first time that I really thought coaching would be a cool job. Tommy Webster, I enjoyed how he coached and the relationships he had with the players. I enjoyed watching Jimmy Rutherford work in the GM chair. It really started to become a reality in my mind when Paul Maurice jumped from being our captain right into being our assistant coach in the same year when we ran out of over-age spots. I watched him and saw how much he enjoyed it and kept that in the back of my mind. Three years later after I finished my first and only professional contract, that's when the opportunity with Paul came up to coach and I jumped at it.

GL: Tell me about getting your law degree while coaching?

PD: I was pursuing a U.S. and a Canadian law degree at the same time while I was an assistant coach with Paul. It was a full workload. Looking back on it, it's one of those things where you wonder how you did it. I think Paul was really flexible in his ask on the commitment level from me. I didn't miss anything, but I sure didn't put in the time that my assistant coaches do now. I'm sure my mark suffered a little bit too, I don't think I was at the top of my class, but I managed to juggle it all.

GL: What did that period teach you about yourself?

PD: I think like any junior hockey player, I was a pretty average student. In high school you're just getting by with your full focus on hockey. When I got to law school, I had confidence issues over if I could do it. I was never an A+ student and it never came naturally to me. I had to work for it. What it showed me was that when I threw myself 100 percent into my studies, I actually became a pretty decent student. It just opened up a whole new world. I had been in the hockey world my whole life. It's a great world, but it's a very small, isolated world. When you get plopped into law school, the demographics, different people, different ages and even the male/female perspective was all new to me because I was 24/7 hockey up until that point. That was enlightening and I learned a lot from my law degree that I use every day in my coaching career.

GL: How do you use your degree in coaching?

PD: When I started coaching and when I was playing, at that time you had a lot of the old-school coaches. They were very demanding and it was their way or the highway with no questions asked. This is how we're doing it and get it done. I think the game has evolved and modern players evolved. You have to build a case a lot like a lawyer does on why you want them to do this. What is good for them personally, what is good for the team and how this is going to move the group forward if you'll do this for us. You're making those cases every day with video, analytics and statistics, conversations and personal relationships and trying to push people into uncomfortable areas in order to move the group forward. As the game has grown, I've used my law degree in that regard even more.

GL: What is a coach's job today?

PD: A coach's job has always been the same, it's just how you get there. The coach's job is to take a group of men or women and first take an evaluation or an inventory of what kind of group you have and what their strengths and weaknesses are. Try to maximize their strengths, minimize their weaknesses and get them to play as a team for as long as possible. That's always been what coaching is about. How you get there now has changed drastically. Just in the last two years, with the use of analytics and the information you can give players individually. It's not the coach telling you to do something because he sees it, it's here are the numbers and we need to get this fixed. There is just a lot more to it. Not that it's easier than it was, but if you're willing to look at all of the resources you have available, I think the job can be even easier than it was years ago.

GL: What have you taken from other coaches along the way?

PD: That has been a huge part of my development as a coach, surrounding myself with good people. Taking what they do well, implementing it and adding it to what I do and believe in. That's what coaches do, that's how a guy like Paul Maurice survives for decades. He keeps evolving and getting better. I learned lessons the hard way. I've always tried to hire good assistant coaches, but the times that I've taken my foot off the gas and leaned more towards loyalty or friendship, as opposed to getting the best person, I frankly have been burned. I've learned that lesson that you get the best people you can around you and work with them. The other thing that has been the biggest benefit in my coaching career, has been my involvement with Hockey Canada. I was involved with the U-18 team when Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau were under-18 so that is a long time ago. That was my first team. Over the years, did World Juniors, World Championships, and got a chance over all those years to listen to Dave King and Tom Renney speak. Got a chance to work with Brent Sutter, Craig MacTavish, Dave Tippett and Ken Hitchcock. Every time you get an opportunity to do that, you become a better coach because you take something from them. That was probably the biggest thing I did. Every year that we missed the playoffs in the NHL, which was my first three years in Florida, I stepped up and got involved with the World Championship team and got myself around those types of guys. Learned from them and from some of the other players in the league to make myself better. There is a sacrifice to that, you have to tell your family after a tough season that you're going overseas for a month. They understood the professional development opportunity of making yourself better and making yourself more relevant.

GL: Tell me about the leap from Kitchener in the OHL to Florida in the NHL?

PD: They were tough years. You don't see guys go right out of junior to the NHL very often. I think Brent [Sutter] opened the door for a group of us at the time. I believe Craig Hartsburg jumped after me at a different point from junior to coach Ottawa. I think Brent opened the door that guys at that level could have success. I think I jumped in and I hadn't coached in the NHL before so I didn't know which doors to walk into at each rink. I had been dealing with junior players which is a different athlete. Their parents drop them off and you're responsible for them 24 hours a day from the time they're 17 until they're 20 at a critical time. You have to be a disciplinarian because if they're out running the streets or getting in trouble, you're personally responsible. In the pro game, there's an expectation that those guys show up and they're professional and they do all their work at the rink. What they do on their own, they're going home to their wives and their kids. You don't have to worry about their school and their homework and their girlfriend and things like that. It was different coaching for me. I had to learn it and evolve quickly. In the Florida situation, it was compounded by the fact that I took the job with a great owner in a guy named Mr. Cohen who had pumped a lot of money and was committed to spending to the cap, a great GM in Jacques Martin who had been a head coach. I was looking forward to learning under him. Within a year, all of that changed. The ownership changed, Jacques Martin left to coach Montreal and my next two years and a bit we had two ownership groups, two more GMs after that. It was eye-opening for me after having the stability of working in Kitchener for seven years and running my own show and working in Plymouth for seven years and running the show there. It was eye-opening but then Lou Lamoriello came along and saved me that summer when I got fired in Florida. I really found out how an NHL team should be run.

GL: Lou Lamiorello called the summer after you got fired in Florida and another door opened. Tell us about that process?

PD: I was very fortunate because Lou was the only call I got that summer. I didn't have a great negotiating position. We had obviously played the Devils because they were in our conference with Florida. Lou insinuated that he always felt that when our talent level dropped when we unloaded and didn't play anywhere near the salary cap as far as man power, our teams were always prepared and played hard. I think that was the reason he gave me a look. I went through a really extensive interview process with him. He had a lot of options. He could have gone a lot of different ways with more experienced guys with better track records. He gave me a shot and I like to think that we rewarded him. We went into that season and they had had a tough year before and missed the playoffs and then we went all the way to the Stanley Cup Final. It was a great experience for me and I owe a lot to him for giving a guy who wasn't in a great position an opportunity and looking deeper than just my record and looking at how hard and how prepared our teams were.

GL: You've worked with excellent hockey people in the GM position with Jacques Martin, Lou Lamoriello, Doug Wilson, George McPhee and Kelly McCrimmon. How important is a smart and effective GM for a head coach?

PD: It's everything. I think the coaches at the NHL level are all great. Everyone has strengths, everyone has weaknesses. When you line them all up, the difference between us is very minimal. I think it's situational, it's players and it's the leadership from the top. Are they going to second-guess everything you do? Or are they going to buy into what you're doing and support you when times get tough? I think that's probably the common denominator of all of those guys. I think that's the one thing they all have in common. They all have different personalities and ways of going about it but, when they hire somebody, they give them the room, the confidence and the support when times get tough to do their job and stay in the foxhole with them. I've been really lucky that way. I like to think it's karma but, after a few years in Florida with some pretty lean teams, I got in some really fortunate situations in New Jersey with a good veteran group. Zach Parise, Ilya Kovalchuk and Bryce Salvador were still there. Martin Brodeur was at the end of his career but still had game left. I was really fortunate to have a good team there. When I got to San Jose, everyone said the window was closing on that group but those guys still had a lot left in the tank. We played a lot of hard playoff games the four years I was there.

GL: Has your coaching style changed over the years?

PD: I think it's grown as far as my philosophy as a coach. The times I've won, we've always been a four-line, six-defense team. I haven't won with teams where I haven't been able to play my fourth line or put guys on the ice that dressed for one or two shifts each night. The really successful teams I've had, everybody's been a part of it and everyone has felt like an important piece. They're not all playing 15 or 16 minutes a night, but they felt important enough that their contribution was helping us win. I think I learned that when I was one of those players. I was a third or fourth line guy and I thought my coaches in junior and even in pro, the ones we had success with, they found a way to make everyone feel like they were contributing to the success. I think that's critical in your deployment of players. I also think that's critical in building a staff. Why hire somebody if you're not going to trust what they do? I've asked George and Kelly to trust me in what I'm doing and I try and pass that on to people underneath me.

GL: Does getting fired get easier?

PD: I'll tell you what gets easier, it gets easier on the family. I remember the first two times I got fired, in Florida my kids were all in grade school and in New Jersey two of my kids were in high school. Those are tough conversations. They're tough because the kids know their time in that area is probably ending and they're going to have to make new friends because a move is inevitable. But it's also tough because they read the media, they see the social media, they see what the fans say. Let's be honest, we sign up for it, but it can be a cruel business sometimes. As coaches we have thick skins, but a lot of times it's hard to ask an 11 or 12-year-old girl to have thick skin, or your son who's in grade six or seven. Those were tough firings. I think as my kids have gotten older, they understand it, they've gotten more independent in what they're doing in their own lives that it doesn't affect them as much. It's not as tough but it's still hard. I remember sitting with Doug Wilson when he fired me in San Jose. It's hard because you invest everything into the group and the job you're doing and basically - I heard Brad Treliving use the quote, it's like running a 100-meter sprint in an 80-meter gym. You run into a wall and you wake up the next morning and you have nowhere to go, you're not invested anymore, and they've moved forward and you're sitting there with nothing to do. It is still hard, but it's not nearly as hard as it was the first two times with young kids.

GL: What makes a good coach?

PD: I think it's different, honestly I remember coaching against Brian Kilrea in junior hockey. Legendary coach, hall of famer, won all kinds of Memorial Cups and championships there. I think if you asked him technically or watched him run a practice you probably would say, he's okay. And this is one of the best coaches of all time. I've seen other guys technically be able to run a practice but can't relate to the group. I think it takes a combination of everything. I think different guys can get there with different strengths and not everyone is the perfect coach. Sherry Bassin had a great saying: 'If you can be liked and respected at the same time it's great, but if you have to pick one you want to pick respected.' There's very few guys that can sit in the dressing room and laugh and joke with the players and still hold them accountable and do all those other things. I think Kilrea was one of those guys, but if you don't have that ability, and many of us don't, then you've got to earn their respect that you're trying to move the team forward with their best interests in mind every night by trying to outwork the other coaches that you're coaching against. I think that's our philosophy.

GL: Winning and losing is a big part of a coach's life. What's it like to live on that edge?

PD: It's terrible, but it's also the greatest feeling on Earth. That's the juice that we all do this for. When it all comes together and your team plays a great game, you've played a part in that, you walk off and there's no better feeling. Having a group of men execute and move around the ice as a unit and play selflessly there is no better feeling. When you don't, there's no worse feeling, because you feel personally responsible and you immediately start looking for solutions. I think what I've learned over the years is the next morning it's really important to wipe the slate clean and start fresh with some type of positive perspective. There're always things you have to get better at and fix. We always re-watch the game back the next morning. I never do it the night of the game because the emotions are still too high. 99.9 percent of the time when we re-watch it, we're never as good as we thought we were walking off the bench, and we're never as bad as we thought we were walking off the bench. That exercise always gives me a little perspective the next day.

Pete DeBoer was named the second head coach in Vegas Golden Knights franchise history on January 15, 2020. He currently owns a career NHL coaching record of 430-334-113, as well as 46 playoff victories following stints with San Jose, New Jersey and Florida. He was named the eighth coach in San Jose Sharks franchise history on May 28, 2015. With San Jose, DeBoer guided the Sharks to a 198-129-34 record over five seasons, including a trip to the first Stanley Cup appearance in team history in 2016. Prior to joining San Jose, DeBoer coached the New Jersey Devils for three and a half seasons, posting a 114-93-41 record and leading the Devils to the 2012 Stanley Cup Final. DeBoer finished his coaching tenure with the Devils as the second-winningest coach in New Jersey franchise history behind Jacques Lemaire (276). DeBoer spent three seasons prior to his stint with the Devils as head coach of the Florida Panthers, compiling a 103-107-36 mark behind the Panthers' bench. Before coaching in the NHL, DeBoer was one of the most distinguished coaches in the Ontario Hockey League's history. He spent 13 seasons coaching with Detroit, Plymouth and Kitchener in the OHL, including winning a Memorial Cup Championship in 2003 and the OHL Championship in 2003 and 2008 with Kitchener. A two-time winner of the OHL Coach of the Year Award in 1999 and 2000 with Plymouth, he was also named the Canadian Hockey League's Coach of the Year in 2000. During his time in the OHL, he led his team to the league's best overall record four times (1998-99, 1999-2000, 2002-03, 2007- 08) and is one of only eight coaches in OHL history to reach the 500+ win mark. He ranks eighth on the OHL all-time coaches win list (539) and 12th in games coached (878). Internationally, DeBoer has frequently been selected to represent his native Canada, including serving as an assistant coach for the Canadian World Championship squad in 2015 (gold medal), 2014 and 2010. Additionally, he was a member of the coaching staff for Canada's World Junior Championship team in 2005 (gold medal) and 1998. He also served on the Team Canada coaching staff for the 2007 Canada-Russia Super Series. A center in his playing career, DeBoer was selected by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 12th round (237th overall) of the 1988 NHL Entry Draft and played professionally for two seasons with the International Hockey League's Milwaukee Admirals.