Earlier today, the Stars took care of keeping one of their team leaders in place when they signed Jamie Benn to a one-year, bonus-laden contract to keep him away from hitting the open market. Meanwhile, it appears that they’re closing in on finding their next leader behind the bench, as TSN’s Darren Dreger reports (Twitter link) that Dallas is close to finalizing their coaching decision with Neil Graham and Glen Gulutzan the perceived favorites for the job.
Graham has not yet worked at the NHL level but has plenty of familiarity with the organization. After retiring during the 2012-13 season while playing for their ECHL affiliate in Idaho, he immediately became an assistant coach, moving into the head coaching role a few years later while also serving as their Director of Hockey Operations. Graham was moved up to AHL Texas in 2019 as an assistant but was promoted to the full-time head coaching role later that season, a role he has held since then. Texas has made the playoffs in each of the last four seasons and made it to the Western Conference Finals this year before losing to Abbotsford who won the Calder Cup earlier this week. That success understandably has him on the radar.
As for Gulutzan, he certainly has familiarity with the organization as well. He spent two years as the head coach with Texas and in 2011, he was promoted to serve in that role with Dallas. The team played to a 64-57-9 record with Gulutzan at the helm but missed the playoffs both times. As a result, he was fired just two weeks after GM Jim Nill joined Dallas. Gulutzan was also the bench boss with Calgary in 2016-17 and 2017-18 with one playoff appearance during that time. He has been an assistant with Edmonton since the 2018-19 season.
Whoever takes over will have high expectations as they’ll be taking the place of Peter DeBoer who was let go despite the Stars making it to the Western Conference Final for three straight years. Nill has been trying to keep as much of his veteran core in place as possible to try to keep them in contention for a while longer, meaning that expectations will be quite high right away.