It has been a dramatic day for the Vegas Golden Knights after they parted company with Head Coach Gerard Gallant.
Peter DeBoer is the new man behind the bench for the Vegas Golden Knights, and he will try to lead this team to a championship.
However, I don’t want to talk about DeBoer in this space, instead I want to dedicate some time to Gallant who was a fine coach and an even better man.
He was the first Head Coach in franchise history for the Vegas Golden Knights and he will forever go down in NHL history for what he achieved with this team.
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So, on that note, I decided to pen an open letter to Gerard Gallant following his dismissal as Head Coach of the Vegas Golden Knights…
Dear Coach Gallant,
You were plucked from hockey wilderness and chosen to be the man to lead this expansion team on its NHL adventure.
You inherited a group of castoffs, unwanted players who had been discarded by their teams and chucked into hockey obscurity.
You brought them together among tragedy, you made them a family and you polished each and every single one of them into polished gems.
You created ‘The Golden Misfits’ and got them playing a brand of hockey that won over a whole city that needed a glimmer of hope to cling to.
With the odds against you and your team, you masterminded a historic season that may never be matched in the long, illustrious history of the NHL.
You and your players defied expectations and critics night in and night out on your way to stunning the hockey world by reaching the Stanley Cup Final.
You helped make Vegas a true hockey town.
You were incredibly well respected by your players, your colleagues, the media and the fans and that trademark Gallant smile became synonymous with the Vegas Golden Knights.
And you kept on adapting. When given elite weapons to fit into your lineup, you did so and you kept this team competitive even when some predicted a drop-off.
You took an expansion team made up of other team’s leftovers, talented leftovers at that, to two postseason appearances and a Stanley Cup Final.
You won the Jack Adams Trophy here in Vegas and you established a reputation as one of the best coaches in the NHL.
Yes, things may not have finished the way we would have all hoped, but you played a critical role in making hockey in Las Vegas an absolute home run.
And we will never ever forget that.
While we are sad and heartbroken to see you go, we will cherish those memories and we know it will be less than a New York Minute until you are back where you belong.
And that’s in the NHL.
So, Coach, thank you for everything and hopefully our paths will cross again.
Yours Sincerely,
Vegas Hockey Knight (on behalf of all Vegas Golden Knights fans)
It is a sad day to see a true figurehead in this team’s success leave but this is the price of doing business, and we must now look ahead to the future with Pete DeBoer.
We will be breaking down this dramatic day even more throughout tonight, and you can read all our insight and opinion right here.