The Rangers have announced that they have fired Head Coach Peter Laviolette and associate coach Phil Housley.
Chris Drury said in a statement: “Today I informed Peter Laviolette and Phil Housley that we’re making a coaching change. I want to thank them both and wish them and their families all the best going forward. Peter is first class all the way, both professionally and personally, and I am truly grateful for his passion and dedication to the Rangers in his time as head coach.”
He added, “After finishing with the best regular season record in the NHL a year ago and making a trip to the Eastern Conference Final, we came into this season with high expectations for ourselves. Quite simply, we failed to meet those expectations. We must all do better – myself included. As we head into next season and beyond, I felt that a change was necessary in order to give us the best chance to achieve our goals as an organization. Our search for a new head coach will begin immediately.”
Assistant coaches Michael Peca and Dan Muse will have an opportunity to interview to stay on with the new coach. (Friedman)
Adam Rotter: This was expected and the right decision from Chris Drury. This also, almost certainly, means that Chris Drury will remain as President and GM and hire the next coach.
When the Rangers fired Gerard Gallant I thought that Peter Laviolette was the perfect choice. He was a veteran coach who had seen everything, would bring more structure, discipline and accountability and it worked. Last season every button he pushed worked. The Rangers were flawed, but they were good enough in most areas to overcome those flaws, win the Presidents’ Trophy and get back to the Eastern Conference Final. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked and the expectation was that a second season under Laviolette had the potential to take the Rangers to the next step. Obviously, that didn’t happen.
Chris Drury needs to take a bunch of the blame for how this season turned out with how he went about his business as GM and how he did or didn’t handle things, but ultimately the Rangers returned a veteran group this season that should have been able to move past things. They started off with a great record but anyone who watched the games saw that the Rangers had regressed in most areas but were still finding ways to win. Once they stopped finding ways to win their record started to match their play and Laviolette wasn’t able to push any combination of buttons to pull the Rangers out of their funk before Drury went about performing surgery on the roster.
I’ve said before that when the Rangers fell down the standings that I believed Laviolette was going to be safe and that had the Rangers stayed at the bottom that might still be the case. But once JT Miller came aboard and the Rangers started gathering points and going up the standings the expectations for the rest of the season changed and the playoffs became a focus. The Rangers didn’t suddenly become a good team, but it seemed like they found a groove and a renewed energy after JT MIller was acquired. But that was an aberration and the Rangers again showed who they truly were with a couple of bad losses going into the 4 Nations Break and then some truly awful performances after the 4 Nations break. How they played after the 4 Nations is ultimately what I think cost Laviolette and Housley their jobs. No one would have expected the Rangers to go on a deep run had they gotten that last playoff spot, but the playoffs themselves, at bare minimum, were expected from this group. They were close to grabbing a spot but played so many games seemingly disinterested, without any semblance of defense or helping Igor Shesterkin, the special teams, part of which was Michael Peca, went into the tank and, again, no button Laviolette could push could stabilize the team or get them to three wins in a row.
While I think there could have been some argument toward keeping Laviolette for the last year of his contract, going into the season as a lame duck would have hung over the year and brought about talk of a change after every loss. This was the only course of action that Drury could take. There was no argument whatsoever about keeping Housley. The team defense was passable to mediocre last year, but truly awful for this season. Whether it was his or Laviolette’s system that was man-to-man, the Rangers had so many misses in coverage and left so many players wide open that it was untenable to bring that back.
Laviolette was the right coach at the right time when he was hired but it was the right decision to fire him and especially the right decision to fire Housley.
So who is next? Anaheim, Chicago, Philly and Boston are the other teams currently looking for a new head coach and it’s not impossible that a few more jobs open in the coming days or after the first round of the playoffs. Joel Quenneville immediately becomes the most talked about name as he’s eligible to be hired and Stan Bowman was already hired in Edmonton after he was reinstated. I’m not sure the Rangers want the baggage that Quenneville will bring with him after the Kyle Beach situation, but he’s unquestionably the best coach available. Jay Woodcroft had success in his short time with Edmonton and he would be a very interesting choice to give a second opportunity to. He was reportedly close to being the Devils coach last year before they opted to hire Sheldon Keefe. Mike Sullivan doesn’t seem like an option and I struggle to see the Rangers going back to John Tortorella. David Carle is the hot college coaching candidate but I don’t know if the Rangers want to go with a first time NHL head coach. They did that with David Quinn but that was also a different team and the organization was in a different spot. Could Kris Knoblauch become available if the Oilers go out early? Seems unlikely, but there is obvious familiarity there after his time in the organization. Rick Tocchet interviewed when the Rangers hired Gerard Gallant but it seems like he’ll either remain in Vancouver or go to Philly. If the Rangers want to go with an experienced coach then they don’t have a ton of options. But if they are willing to go with someone young and give them a first NHL job then it can become a more wide open field. Jay Leach, who they interviewed with Laviolette was hired, could be an option but it would be his first NHL head coaching job.