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Peter DeBoer’s All Time Team at 500 Career Wins

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Vegas Golden Knights head coach Peter DeBoer 2022 NHL All-Star Game (Photo- Vegas Golden Knights via Twitter)

Golden Knights head coach Peter DeBoer earned his 500th career win at the NHL level Tuesday night. He is the 28th coach in NHL history to do so and joins Todd McLellan, Bruce Boudreau, Darryl Sutter, Peter Laviolette, Lindy Ruff, and Barry Trotz as active coaches to do so.

DeBoer entered the NHL as a head coach with the Florida Panthers in 2008-09. He has been in the league for 15 seasons now and has coached four teams in the Panthers, Golden Knights, San Jose Sharks, and New Jersey Devils. Humbly, DeBoer credited other people for his success Tuesday night.

“You don’t remember the wins and losses. You remember the people, coaching staffs, trainers, doctors, world-class players that we get the chance to work with every day. You feel fortunate that you’ve had the opportunity to work in the best league in the world,” said DeBoer.

Peter DeBoer’s All-Time Team

So with the Golden Knights off today, I took a journey through the decade and a half of DeBoer’s coaching career to look back on some of the teams he has coached. DeBoer’s two best teams, in terms of playoff runs, have come in 2012 with the New Jersey Devils and 2016 with the San Jose Sharks. Both teams reached the Stanley Cup Finals but DeBoer has yet to win the ultimate goal.

For this team, I want to put together four forward lines, three defense pairs, and two goaltenders who DeBoer has coached to give you a sense of some of the players he has coached. This is a completely irrelevant and dumb exercise I wanted to do for fun. Don’t take this too seriously.

The rules for this are simple, any player that DeBoer has coached is eligible. I am, however, limiting this to players that have played a minimum of two seasons under DeBoer. That means no Zach Parise or Jack Eichel (dude has only played six games under DeBoer).

I also only have one honorable mention, Kamil Kreps (because what a last name), who played for DeBoer’s Panthers for two seasons. If I were to include any other honorable mentions this roster would be pointless to make. DeBoer has coached a lot of good players.

Line 1: Patrick Marleau- Joe Thornton- Jaromir Jagr

Hall of Famers and all-around world-class players make up this first line. DeBoer coached Joe Thornton for five seasons in San Jose and also got to put the NHL’s All-Time leader in games played on the ice for three seasons in Patrick Marleau. Jaromir Jagr played two seasons under DeBoer in New Jersey and led the Devils in scoring in the 2013-14 season at 41 years old. Three absolute legends here.

Line 2: Ilya Kovalchuk- Joe Pavelski- Mark Stone

While Kovalchuk only played two seasons for DeBoer’s Devils before heading back to the KHL, he was the sparkplug that sent them to the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals. Kovalchuk scored 201 points in 222 games with the Devils. Joe Pavelski often gets overlooked as one of the best players of the 2010s and is still kicking it today, leading the Dallas Stars in scoring.

Finally, we have our first Golden Knight in Mark Stone who DeBoer has now coached for three seasons, though none fully due to injuries, COVID, and shortened seasons.

Line 3: Max Pacioretty- Logan Couture- Tomas Hertl

I couldn’t include Stone and not also throw in Max Pacioretty who like Stone has been coached by DeBoer since taking over for Gerard Gallant. San Jose Sharks’ current captain Logan Couture is also here, who saw his role on the Sharks increase in his five years under DeBoer. Lastly, we have Tomas Hertl, who is top-five in scoring for the Sharks in three of DeBoer’s five seasons with the team.

Line 4: Patrick Elias- Stephen Weiss- Jonathan Marchessault

Snubbed Hockey Hall of Famer Patrick Elias is perhaps the most underrated name on this list. Elias played his entire 20-year, 1,200+ game career with the New Jersey Devils and scored 1025 points. Jonathan Marchessault plays the right side on the fourth line, with many more years under DeBoer on the horizon. Finally, I wanted to include at least one player from DeBoer’s early days with the Florida Panthers. So I chose center Stephen Weiss, who led the struggling Panthers in scoring in all three of DeBoer’s years with the franchise.

D-Pair 1: Erik Karlsson- Brent Burns

The stacked roster DeBoer will have at his disposal only in the confines of Vegas Hockey Now doesn’t end on offense. He gets to reunite the Sharks pairing of Norris Trophy defenseman in Brent Burns and Erik Karlsson. Oh, and in case you were wondering all of these players get magically healed and transported into the prime of their careers. So no one-foot Karlsson.

D-Pair 2: Alex Pietrangelo- Marc-Eduoard Vlasic

I shuffled up the second and third pairings to give a little bit of spice to mismatching these players. Alex Pietrangelo and Marc-Eduoard Vlasic would make one heck of a shutdown pairing. We tend to forget though how short Pietrangelo’s career in Las Vegas has been. We are only in year two of that seven-year deal he signed to come to the Vegas Golden Knights.

D-Pair 3: Shea Theodore- Alec Martinez

Lastly on defense, a pairing that DeBoer has used frequently in his time with the Golden Knights has been that of Shea Theodore and Alec Martinez. Hopefully, he gets to utilize this pairing sometime soon as Martinez is still out with a facial laceration after he took a skate to the face on November 11th.

Goalies: Martin Brodeur/Marc-Andre Fleury

When you have two out of the top three goaltenders in terms of all-time wins on your team you know you have coached some truly special players. Martin Brodeur still remains the greatest goaltender of all time (fight me). Say what you want to say about the infamous sword to the back though with Marc-Andre Fleury.

I count two current Hockey Hall of Famers (Brodeur, Jagr) and potentially five or six more.

500 wins is quite the milestone for any NHL coach. But one thing DeBoer has never been able to achieve yet in his career is the ultimate goal of the Stanley Cup. He has come close in 2012 and 2016 but this season, with the Vegas Golden Knights, DeBoer looks to finally reach the top of the mountain.