A familiar face could be taking over as the Dallas Stars‘ next head coach.
The Stars are closing in on hiring Glen Gulutzan as the franchise’s next head coach, a person familiar with the team’s search confirmed to The Dallas Morning News.
Gulutzan, who was most recently an assistant for the Edmonton Oilers, served as the Stars’ head coach for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons before being fired by Jim Nill as one of his first acts as GM.
But for the second time in his career, Nill could be hiring a former Stars coach to take over the team. He hired Stanley Cup-winning Ken Hitchcock for his second stint in Dallas in the 2017-18 season.
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The possible hire comes three weeks after the Stars fired DeBoer after three years leading the team.
Nill said earlier this month that he planned to conduct a patient and open-minded search for DeBoer’s replacement. The Stars entertained both internal and external candidates for the role and took their time, as they were the only NHL team actively searching for a new head coach.
Gulutzan has not served as a head coach since the 2017-18 season. After his two years in Dallas, which followed two seasons as the Texas Stars’ head coach, he went on to coach the Calgary Flames.
He has a 146-125-23 record in his 294 games as a head coach and has made the playoffs just once when Calgary lost in the first round to Anaheim in 2016-17.
The Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan, native also served as an assistant for the Vancouver Canucks and the Oilers, most recently. He had worked in Edmonton since 2018, running the Oilers’ lethal power play led by Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
Gulutzan’s Oilers eliminated the Stars in the Western Conference finals in each of the last two seasons. The Oilers went 6-for-16 on the power play in their five playoff games against the Stars this year.
Gulutzan’s contract with the Oilers is set to expire Monday.
The 53-year-old would become the Stars’ sixth head coach in the last decade and under Nill. He replaces DeBoer, who led the Stars to three consecutive Western Conference finals, but lost his job after many felt he lost the locker room.
The decision to part ways with the veteran head coach came after player exit interviews and DeBoer’s unpopular benching of goalie Jake Oettinger in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals and postgame comments putting the responsibility on his goaltender.
While the Oettinger saga played a factor, it wasn’t the only reason for his firing. Nill felt the Stars needed a new voice to finally take them past the third round and back to the Stanley Cup Final.
They’ll hope Gulutzan can be that voice. Despite already having a chance in Dallas, he’s gained much more experience at the NHL level than when taking his first NHL job in Dallas.
The Stars are also in a far different place as an organization than they were 12 years ago, with Gulutzan now getting the chance to take a contending team the distance in his first year back.
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