Western Wild Card Team Looked at DeBoer Before Joining Islanders

The New York Islanders brought in head coach Peter DeBoer to give them a coaching bump. Sitting a single point outside a playoff spot, the hope is that he takes over for Patrick Roy, motivates the group, and pushes them into a longer playoff run. Interestingly, it wasn’t just the Isles that had this idea.

According to NHL insider Elliotte Friedman, another team out west had the same thought—the Utah Mammoth.

Utah Was Thinking About Changing Their Coach

Firmly in a wild card spot, the Mammoth are set to make the postseason, but nothing is guaranteed. Andre Tourigny (Arizona Coyotes/Utah) was hired on July 1, 2021, and is one of the longest-serving active NHL coaches. He’s taken a good young group of players and turned them into contenders. But it’s time for the franchise to push.

Sitting in the first wild card spot with 86 points, they’ve won three in a row and are 6-4-0 in their last ten. That means, they were 3-4-0 prior to this recent winning streak. It was enough to have them thinking about a change.

The Mammoth Met With DeBoer

Elliotte Friedman reports on the most recent edition of the 32 Thoughts podcast that the Mammoth was the only team he knows for certain that met with Peter DeBoer before the Islanders hired him.

“The only thing I know is that Utah considered it. I don’t know how far it went, and the Mammoth righted themselves, but Utah did think about it this year. I don’t know if they ever asked for permission.”

It’;s fascinating to see how many teams considered making last-minute coaching changes as a way to course correct when it appeared things were going sideways. All were in playoff spots at the time, including the Vegas Golden Knights, Islanders, and Los Angeles Kings. Utah was thinking it too.

Does that mean there could be more changes? Perhaps, but it seems unlikely now. Nashville and Detroit are the most likely.

There was talk that Edmonton might have considered a change, but they’ve won five of their last six and are now tied for first in the Pacific Division. Something would have to go terribly wrong in the next three games to make a change now.

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