DALLAS (AP) — Glen Gulutzan was ready to be the head coach of the Dallas Stars this time.
There was a lot of experience Gulutzan gained in the 12 years between being let go by the Stars after his first two seasons as an NHL head coach and being re-hired last summer — by the same general manager who soon after taking that role in 2013 decided not to keep him.
“He’s lived it. How do you build your resume, you’ve got to go through experiences,” Stars GM
Jim Nill said. “He’s gone through those experiences and those situations."
The 54-year-old Gulutzan is now leading the Stars (50-20-12) into the Western Conference playoffs. Game 1 is at home Saturday against Central Division rival Minnesota. They wrapped up their third consecutive 50-win regular season with 112 points, the third-most in the NHL.
After the Stars fired Pete DeBoer last June, even though each of his three seasons ended in the Western Conference final, Nill brought back Gulutzan after a dozen seasons in Canada for 947 regular-season games and 93 more in the playoffs. He was a Vancouver assistant for three seasons, then the head coach in Calgary for two before seven seasons on the staff in Edmonton, which eliminated Dallas in the West final each of the past two years.
“He's got composure behind the bench. He's guided our team,” Nill said. “There's been highs and lows during the year, there's a lot of injuries he'd had to deal with. But he's gotten that experience now, how to deal with that. And it doesn't change focus. It's always about the next moment, the next game."
Gulutzan was coaching the Stars’ AHL team before becoming a first-time NHL head coach in 2011, during an awkward period for the franchise as it went through bankruptcy and an ownership change while being basically run by the league.
Dallas was 42-35-5 in Gulutzan’s debut season, then 22-22-4 in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season before Nill became the GM and didn’t pick up the coach’s option for a third season.
DeBoer has been a head coach for six different teams over 18 seasons, including the final four games for the New York Islanders this year after replacing the fired Patrick Roy.
While DeBoer has always been in charge behind the bench in the NHL, Gulutzan after his initial head coaching stint got the opportunity to work with coaches like John Tortorella, Ken Hitchcock, Dave Tippett and Kris Knoblauch. He was part of 75 playoff games with the Oilers the past four seasons, getting to the Stanley Cup Final twice after eliminating the Stars.
Having been a depended-on assistant himself, Gulutzan now depends heavily on his staff.
Gulutzan took over a Stars team that returned most of its primary core, though the only player still around from his first time there is Jamie Benn, the 36-year-old captain in his 17th season.
Veteran center Matt Duchene said DeBoer did an amazing job laying a foundation, and that Gulutzan has done a nice job tweaking things through the course of this season.
“Just a really, really smart hockey mind that sees the game really well,” said Wyatt Johnston, the 22-year-old, fourth-year forward whose 45 goals matched Jason Robertson for the team lead.
“He’s brought in some elements to our team that have made us, when we’re at our best, probably just an elite, elite team, and I think understands our group pretty well,” Duchene said. “There’s a reason you go to three straight conference finals. It’s not by accident. You need great coaching to be able to do that. And I think Pete was that for sure and then Gully coming in ... he didn’t come in being like, all right, it’s my show now, I’m going to completely gut this and redo it.”
Under DeBoer, the Stars became the first team to reach the conference finals three seasons in a row without winning at least one Cup title under the playoff format that began in 1994. The Stars didn’t even make it past that.
The Stars had a franchise-record 10-game winning streak that ended in early March, and now have won five in a row. That's a stark difference from the seven-game losing streak they took into last year's postseason.
“The focus, that’s what I’m recognizing as very, very similar,” Gulutzan said when asked what he's seen in the Stars compared to his recent deep runs with the Oilers. “You can just feel the focus of the players starting to change the closer they get. ... Their demeanor is starting to change."
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