Stars finalizing head coaching choice; Gulutzan and Graham favourites
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As the Dallas Stars continue to remain active this off-season, TSN Hockey Insider Darren Dreger reports the team is now finalizing their head coaching position.
Dreger reports that Glen Gulutzan and Neil Graham are believed to be the front-runners for a rule.
The Stars parted ways with head coach Peter DeBoer after exiting the playoffs in the Western Conference Final for the third straight season last month.
Gulutzan has spent the past seven years as an assistant coach with the Edmonton Oilers, who have eliminated the Stars in each of the past two seasons.
The 53-year-old has debut as an NHL head coach with the Stars in 2011, missing the playoffs in both of his two years behind the bench with the team. After spending three years as an assistant with the Vancouver Canucks, Gulutzan returned to a head coaching role with the Calgary Flames in 2016. He reached the playoffs with Calgary in his first year, falling in the first round, and was fired after missing the postseason in 2018. He then joined the Oilers staff.
Graham, 40, has spent the past five seasons as head coach of the AHL's Texas Stars, reaching the playoffs in each of the past years. The AHL club also reached their conference final this year after going 43-26-3 in the regular season.
The Stars have been among the most active teams so far this off-season, re-signing pending unrestricted free agents Jamie Benn and Matt Duchene, along with RFAs Mavrik Bourque and Nils Lundqvist and trading forward Mason Marchment to the Seattle Kraken.
Dallas had just $1.98 million remaining in cap space for next season before signing Benn to a $1 million base salary on Thursday with 19 players under contract for next season, per Puckpedia. Evgenii Dadonov, Mikael Granlund, Colin Blackwell, Cody Ceci and Brendan Smith remain slated to hit the open market next week.