What could the Stars be getting with Glen Gulutzan as their new (again) head coach?

The Stars are close to finalizing a deal with a former coach to return.

The Dallas Stars are in the midst of hammering out the details on a coaching contract with Glen Gulutzan.

It was first reported by Darren Dreger, then confirmed to me through a source that the sides have agreed in principle and it’s just a matter of contract negotiations now.

So assuming things get finalized, it looks like, technically, the Dallas Stars are going with a “retread” for their head coach.

Gulutzan coached the Stars for two seasons, in 2011-12 and 2012-13, and missed the playoffs twice. He had a 64-57-9 record in Dallas, and in one of Jim Nill’s first moves as the Stars new general manager he fired Gulutzan, a move he mulled over for about two weeks and came after he had at least five conversations with Gulutzan.

"We had some good discussions," Nill said at the time. "It’s part of the business. Sometimes you have to go through peaks and valleys. In the end, this is going to make him a better coach."

Now a dozen years later, Nill is hoping that statement was prophetic after he hired Gulutzan to replace Pete DeBoer, who had led the Stars to three straight Western Conference Finals.

The Stars kept the coaching search really quiet, a side effect of it being the only open job, but in the end it appears that the Stars made a decision between Gulutzan and Texas Stars head coach Neil Graham.

As the news started to trickle out, there were some negative social media reactions to Gulutzan’s potential hire, those who remembered how the Stars looked during his first stint as head coach and used that to judge his entire résumé.

Personally, I like the hire. And while the Stars don’t care what I think, I called for Dallas to hire Gulutzan in the aftermath of Game 5 of the DLLS Stars Postgame show.

For me Gulutzan’s work with the Edmonton Oilers is more important than what he did in Dallas or even with the Calgary Flames as a head coach.

It’s also a point of contention for some, who look at the Oilers roster, see Leon Draisaitl and Conor McDavid, and decide to knock him for any power play success.

If you’ll allow me, let me point you to the 2017-18 season, where the Oilers had both those players and they also had the league’s worst power play at 14.8 percent.

Edmonton hired Gulutzan that summer as an assistant, and whether you want to call it coincidence or causation, the Oilers power play took over from there and became one of the NHL’s most feared in the past eight seasons.

I asked Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch about Gulutzan during the Western Conference Final.

“When he got here, it was a last-place power play, and those two were on the power play. So yes, expectations it should be good. But I think with the things that he's implemented and gives them a good guidelines, good structure, the power play to work, and knows when there's times to give them more information, not information, doesn't over coach it,” Knoblach said. “I think he's got really good grasp on that, and I don't think he gets enough credit for that, because often you think about the players that we have, and there's just an expectation that we'd have a great power play, but just it wasn't always a great power play before he got here, so there's a lot of credit that should be given to him.”

Knoblach also credited Gulutzan with being a guide for him as he took over as the Oilers head coach in the middle of the 2023-24 season, and I’ve spoken to players in Edmonton who looked at Gulutzan as more of an associate than assistant head coach when it came to hierarchy.

Gulutzan also built a pretty strong relationship with the Oilers top players, McDavid chief amongst them, which is pretty important in more of a player-driven NHL.

It’s one of the reasons in the end that Gulutzan made more sense as an NHL head coach than Graham at this time. Graham is considered a rising star in coaching, other NHL teams were interested in interviewing him for assistant roles, but he’s also never worked with NHL egos or won anything at the minor-league level.

Graham feels very similar, to me, to what happened with Washington Capitals coach Spencer Carbery, who was a good AHL coach and then picked up a couple years of NHL experience as assistant before becoming a viable head coaching candidate.

I don’t know whether Gulutzan is the right hire or not in Dallas, but I’m at least intrigued to see how he handles things and, personally, I think his time before in Dallas shouldn’t be held against him.