Pete DeBoer famously arrived late and somewhat empty-handed for his first game day as Golden Knights’ coach, arriving at Ottawa’s Canadian Tire Centre after the team had completed its morning workout—and without the requisite suit or skates.

His tardiness was the result of a canceled flight; his lack of sartorial necessities the result of accepting the job while vacationing with his family in Sarasota, Florida. It added stress to what he already knew would be an awkward introduction to players who had previously considered him a rival—the topper to a whirlwind 48 hours since the Golden Knights had first contacted him.

DeBoer had been through a lot during his 12-year career as an NHL coach with three other teams, but he thought nothing would ever be as wild as the series of events that led him onto the Vegas bench last January. He was soon proven wrong.

“As many things as I was juggling, I think now, looking back, we had no idea what we were in for just a couple months later,” DeBoer says. “I think it made your day-to-day problems and some of the things I was dealing with at that time of my life pretty insignificant.”

From the shortened schedule to divisional-only games in reconfigured quadrants to strict league protocols, very little about the 2021 NHL season looks normal. But everything feels comparatively ordinary to the 52-year-old DeBoer as he gets ready for his first full season at the helm of the Golden Knights after a particularly turbulent professional ride last season.

In just over a month’s time, DeBoer was fired by the San Jose Sharks and hired by the Golden Knights. Then, as he finally began feeling settled in Las Vegas—with the team streaking to take control of the Pacific Division and he and his wife, Sue, having closed on a house in Summerlin—COVID-19 hit.

The season was paused. The moving trucks scheduled to deliver furniture from San Jose were canceled. DeBoer couldn’t even permanently move to the area until after a near two-month stay in the NHL’s postseason bubble in Edmonton over the summer.

“Throw all that into the mix, and it’s been a crazy year,” DeBoer says. “I’m glad 2020 is in the rearview mirror.”

It started so promisingly for DeBoer, though. After San Jose let him go in December 2019, he wasn’t planning on getting back into the NHL until the end of the regular season in late May or early summer, when a few coaching vacancies would surely open. But those would likely be bottom-tier teams, not ready-made contenders like the Golden Knights. That’s why he didn’t hesitate when the call from Vegas came through. Much to his delight, his wife and daughter, who were with him in Florida, expressed similar excitement about the opportunity.

“I couldn’t even get [Las Vegas] out of my mouth before there was a chorus of yeses,” DeBoer says. “It was such a great opportunity, not just from a hockey-coaching perspective, but from a family, lifestyle perspective, too. My kids are all university-aged, and I think there was nowhere else they’d rather spend their downtime than in Las Vegas.”

To DeBoer’s own surprise, his reception in the Golden Knights’ dressing room wasn’t dour, either, despite the players’ support for the supplanted Gerard Gallant, who had called the new coach “a clown” while the two squads did battle less than a year before.

DeBoer initially expected to have to win over the roster during a stretch of nine straight road games, hoping to gain the players’ trust in time for his first game at T-Mobile Arena a month after coming aboard. It happened far quicker.

“It was a little awkward for about 30 seconds, and then I got to work and recognized pretty quickly that these guys just wanted to win,” DeBoer recalls. “They weren’t happy about their situation and were willing to listen to whatever they needed to help get them back on track.”

DeBoer got the Golden Knights going in the right direction, leading them to a 15-5-2 record in two months on the job. On March 12, the team was in Minnesota preparing for a game against the Wild when they got the call that the season was being postponed. DeBoer retreated to his offseason home in Canada to quarantine, thinking the Golden Knights would be back on the ice in a few weeks. That didn’t happen.

The team didn’t reconvene until mid-July, for a short local training camp before heading off to the bubble. Vegas went on to reach the Western Conference Final, but DeBoer looks back on the experience as the ultimate grind.

“It became tough from a mental point of view on a daily basis to keep yourself in a good frame of mind,” DeBoer says. “When you lock somebody up for that amount of time, it can wreak havoc on your mental state. With what was going on in the world, our problems were small, but looking back, it’s interesting how much tougher it was mentally than I thought it would be.”

DeBoer found solace in bus rides to a stadium where players and coaches were permitted to exercise outdoors. That aspect wasn’t all that different from the way he spends free time here now, after finally relocating in November.

Thus far, outdoor activities have been DeBoer’s favorite part about living in Las Vegas. He says he played golf or tennis nearly every day in December and became a regular at Red Rock Canyon, where he has spent many hours hiking various trails with his family while taking in the “beautiful landscape.”

After a hectic past year, DeBoer has found peace. Now, he’s ready to get back on the bench for NHL action. “It’s much better circumstances [now],” DeBoer says. “I think everyone is excited to get back to the normalcy of playing.”