Pete DeBoer says time away gave him new perspective before joining NY Islanders

Pete DeBoer did not plan to spend almost all of the 2025-26 season away from an NHL bench.

But the unexpected break gave the New York Islanders coach something he had not had in nearly two decades: time to gain perspective. In an exclusive interview with Ethan Sears of the New York Post earlier this month, DeBoer said the time away reminded him how rare and valuable NHL coaching jobs really are.

“I think it gave me a chance to regain perspective on how special these jobs are and how there’s only 32 of them,” DeBoer told Sears. “I was 18 straight seasons of working one team to the next without a break, sometimes you lose perspective of that. Sometimes you take it for granted.”

DeBoer also used the time to learn. His work with Team Canada gave him a chance to spend extended time around Jon Cooper, Rick Tocchet, Bruce Cassidy and Misha Donskov during the 4 Nations Face-Off and in preparation for the Olympics.

For a coach with more than 1,200 NHL games behind the bench, DeBoer still sees value in picking up ideas from others. “I think you always go to the next place a better coach than the one you were,” he told Sears. For DeBoer, that includes how he communicates, how he delivers messages, and how he sees the game.

He said he considers himself a better coach now than when he led the New Jersey Devils to the Stanley Cup Final in 2012 or the San Jose Sharks there in 2016. That's good news for the Islanders because he already was considered one of the most respected coaches in the NHL, with a knack for turning around franchises in short order.

After four short games at the end of the last season, he gets the benefit of having a head start going into his first full-season behind the Islanders bench, with a hope that the new perspectives he's learned can help get him over the last hump he needs to accomplish as an NHL coach.

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