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Golden Knights fire Gallant, hire Peter DeBoer as head coach

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Darren Dreger, Keith Jones, and Mike Milbury react to the abrupt firing of Gerard Gallant in Las Vegas and detail what things might look like for the Golden Knights under new head coach Peter DeBoer.

In a stunning news drop Wednesday morning the Vegas Golden Knights announced they’ve fired Gerard Gallant and assistant Mike Kelly and hired Peter DeBoer as their new head coach.

“In order for our team to reach its full potential, we determined a coaching change was necessary. Our team is capable of more than we have demonstrated this season,” said Golden Knights GM Kelly McCrimmon in a statement. “We would like to thank Gerard and Mike for their service to the Vegas Golden Knights. They were both instrumental to the success we have enjoyed in our first two-plus seasons and we wish them all the best moving forward. In Peter DeBoer, we have a proven, experienced head coach who we believe can help us achieve our ultimate goal. We are excited to welcome Peter and his family to the Vegas Golden Knights organization. We look forward to a strong finish to the 2019-20 season with Peter at the helm and a successful tenure in the seasons to come.”

(Remember when Gallant called DeBoer a “clown” during the Golden Knights-Sharks series last season?)

Gallant, who was supposed to be in St. Louis next week to coach the Pacific Division All-Star team, was the franchise’s first head coach and helped lead them to the playoffs in each of their first two seasons, which included a trip to the 2018 Stanley Cup Final. He compiled a 118-75-20 record in parts of three seasons and is now the seventh coaching casualty in 2019-20.

The Golden Knights are currently on 54 points and tied for one of the final wild card spots in the Western Conference. They’ve dropped four straight, but they’re also three points behind the Coyotes for the division lead. Will this turn out to be a short-sighted decision by McCrimmon, who is in his first season as the team’s GM?

Given the number of coaching changes in the NHL this season DeBoer likely wasn’t going to be out of work very long. Like John Hynes in Nashville, he’s walking into a situation that could really be great if their goaltending turns around. Marc-Andre Fleury and Malcom Subban have handled majority of the load and have produced a combined .911 even strength save percentage this season, fifth-worst in the NHL per Natural Stat Trick. They’re top-five in possession, expected goals, scoring chance percentage, and high-danger scoring change percentage. The talent is there, they just need someone to make a save.

DeBoer’s resume shows that he’s able to get immediate improvement in his teams. The Panthers, Devils, and Sharks all got the DeBoer Bump early on. That’ll likely continue in Vegas.

As for Gallant, the 2018 Jack Adams Award winner, there’s one obvious destination that should have already reached out to him and that’s Detroit. Jeff Blashill is not long for the Red Wings’ job and Gallant has ties to the organization having played his first nine NHL seasons there.

There’s a lot of work ahead for Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman and with Gallant’s track record as a coach he could be big part of a solution in Hockeytown.

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Sean Leahy is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @Sean_Leahy.