The Dallas Stars, Western Conference Final runner-up from the past three seasons, are against all odds looking for a new coach to start the 2025-26 season.

Pete DeBoer was let go Friday in what would have been a surprise if it had not been for the choices made in the Western Conference Final against the Edmonton Oilers.

The coaching search comes at a strange time, because almost all of the coaching vacancies across the NHL have already been filled. A lot of other coaches have filled open assistant positions as well. Dallas has to find the right fit to keep the team on the same trajectory from a small pool of available candidates.

Here are three reasons Texas Stars head coach Neil Graham should take the step up from the AHL:

- Graham is 40 years old, a young coach with less of the old and slow style mentality than other candidates on the market. He has already made the jump from being the head coach for the ECHL affiliate of Dallas, the Idaho Steelheads, in 2019. He was the head coach in Idaho for four years before taking the reigns for Texas midway through his first season at the AHL level.

- Graham has coached several of the star young players who are now an integral part of the Dallas organization. He won with those players, and is still winning without the young talent. He currently has Texas in the AHL Conference Final this season without a young player who is an obvious NHLer in the near future. General Manager Jim Nill acknowledged his success in his press conference Friday, noting that Graham will definitely be in the conversation for the position.

- The Stars need continuity. This is not a splashy hire to shake things up or send the team in a completely different direction. This is about finding someone to give Dallas that one last edge to hoist the Stanley Cup.. Nill feels like the team is so close, and so do the players. Graham is an in-house hire and someone who is pretty familiar to the existing core. Watching the Texas Stars, it looks like Graham could add some team speed that the Stars were lacking at the end of DeBoer's tenure. Otherwise, he probably won't have to change much other than the voice in the locker room.

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