Official – Kings name Peter Laviolette 32nd Head Coach in franchise history

The LA Kings have formally announced Peter Laviolette as the team’s next Head Coach.

Of the candidates who have been linked here, there is certainly none with more experience than Laviolette. Los Angeles will be the seventh franchise he has been behind the bench for. Laviolette has been the Head Coach with the Islanders, Hurricanes, Flyers, Predators, Capitals and Rangers over a 23-season career at the NHL level, coaching 1,594 regular-season games in the league as a head coach, the ninth-most in NHL history.

Laviolette ranks sixth in NHL history with 846 wins. Of the 32 coaches in NHL history with at least 1,000 games coached, Laviolette ranked seventh with a points percentage of .589. He has one Stanley Cup Championship – with Carolina in 2006 – and has coached in the Stanley Cup Final three times, also reaching with Philadelphia (2010) and Nashville (2017). Laviolette is one of four coaches in NHL history to reach the Stanley Cup Final with three different franchises and he is the only coach to do so recently. In terms of the resume, there probably wasn’t a stronger one available for a head coach this summer.

What first stood out to me with regards to Laviolette’s track record suggests a history of immediate improvements. Five of the six teams that he has coached have improved their fates under Laviolette, typically with immediate impact.

From the start, the New York Islanders missed the playoffs seven straight seasons before qualifying in both of Laviolette’s seasons behind the bench, offering up a 44-point improvement during his first season with the organization. In Carolina, Laviolette was a midseason replacement during the 2003-04 season and after the 2004-05 campaign was caboshed due to the NHL Lockout, Laviolette and the Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup in the 2005-06 season, the first championship in franchise history, coming off two straight seasons of missing the playoffs.

Laviolette then joined Philadelphia, when he led the Flyers to the Stanley Cup Final in his first season behind the bench. After joining the organization midway through the 2009-10 season, Laviolette and the Flyers lost in six games to Chicago, the first time the organization had advanced to the Final since 1997. Then came Nashville, when Laviolette inherited a Predators team that missed the playoffs in 2013 and 2014. He helped guide the team back to the postseason in 2015, before advancing to Round 2 in 2016 and reaching the Stanley Cup Final in 2017, the organization’s first time ever advancing past the second round of the playoffs.

Washington was the only team that did not significantly improve its fortunes under Laviolette. He inherited a team that had qualified for the playoffs in 2020 and again guided them into the postseason in both 2021 and 2022. In all three seasons, Washington lost in the first round. The winning percentage showed improvement, with Laviolette’s team posting a .688 clip in his first season, but the Round 1 defeat was not an advancement.

In New York, Laviolette inherited a Rangers team that was led by current Kings forward Artemi Panarin, that had lost in the first round of the playoffs the season prior. The Rangers advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals under Laviolette in his first season, falling to Florida in six games.

It’s worth noting here that Laviolette did coach Panarin for two seasons in New York. Under Laviolette, Panarin had his best season in the NHL in 2023-24, as he set career highs in goals (49) and points (120). It’s not as if Panarin went from being an unknown to a superstar under Laviolette but he certainly had his best season from a production standpoint. He also had an impactful playoffs, with 15 points (5-10-15) in 16 games played, as New York won two rounds. In the two seasons with a Laviolette/Panarin partnership, only five players in the NHL scored more goals. Interested to see if Panarin was consulted on the hire at all, which is one to ask Ken Holland about when the time comes, likely coming tomorrow afternoon in a press-conference setting.

Laviolette now inherits a team in Los Angeles that needs a similar bump to the one he’s helped to find in other markets. The Kings have been eliminated in the first round of the postseason five years running. Of those five rounds, they’ve never felt further from advancing than this past spring, when the team did compete extremely hard but got swept by a Colorado team that is ahead of where the Kings are in the process. The Kings have some pieces to work with and build around but they certainly need to add more in a couple of different areas. The first move to make was a coach who can get more out of the group and we’ll see now if Laviolette will be that guy.

Laviolette’s teams in past stops have not always been laden with superstar players. Perhaps that is another reason why there should be encouragement here, because the Kings don’t have those types of players either, when you stack them up to the top teams in the Western Conference. The Kings do have some very good players up front – with Panarin now on board for a full season and Adrian Kempe signed long term and Kevin Fiala returning from injury – but when you look at the contenders in the West, the Kings are built differently. Laviolette led Philadelphia and Nashville to the Finals with leading scorers in the 60’s. Those players were Viktor Arvidsson and Mike Richards. So, he’s got a proven track record of leading teams without superstars, particularly at center, to success in the postseason. That’s encouraging.

Now, there’s also a reason why a coach is unemployed and available. Laviolette has found instant success with most teams but he’s also seen that success tail off over time. He’s done well enough in most places to continue to get new jobs and he’s continued to find success in those new jobs. However, he’s also lost those jobs and typically, it’s been due to team performance stagnating after the early success. In Carolina, Philadelphia and Nashville, Laviolette was relieved of his duties during the season, on teams that did not match the success they had in previous years. Not a one-size fits all situation, but it’s worth mentioning.

It’s a big reason why I think that the contract terms here are shorter. There is age in play – Laviolette is 61 – but I think a shorter-term contract is one that makes sense here, at least for the Kings. If the fit is good from the start and continues to be good, there is plenty of time to extend it. If things don’t work, there is not a five-year term here to navigate around as it pertains to contracts and dollars. It’s part of the reason I like the move.

Another reason for me is that Laviolette offers something different. This isn’t an internal hire. It’s not a promotion from within the organization. This isn’t a hire driven by relationships. Ken Holland went through the process and was thorough in what he was doing. As such, he evaluated several options for the position, with several varying degrees of background. I think the Kings needed an injection of that into their hierarchy and Laviolette provides that.

Laviolette is set to address the media tomorrow at 1 PM at Toyota Sports Performance Center, alongside Kings General Manager Ken Holland. Will share a live link here tomorrow afternoon and will have full takeaways after the availability is concluded!

From the team’s official release –

The LA Kings have named Peter Laviolette as the club’s 32nd head coach in franchise history, it was announced today by Vice President and General Manager Ken Holland.

Laviolette, 61, joins the Kings as the seventh-winningest coach in NHL history with an all-time record of 846-562-186 (.531 PTS %) spanning 23 seasons between the New York Islanders (2001-03), Carolina Hurricanes (2003-09), Philadelphia Flyers (2009-2014), Nashville Predators (2014-20), Washington Capitals (2020-23) and New York Rangers (2023-25). His 846 regular-season wins behind the bench are the seventh-most in League history while his 1,594 games coached are the ninth-most, which both rank first and second among U.S.-born coaches, respectively.

Leading Carolina to a Stanley Cup Championship in 2006, Laviolette has guided 14 different teams to the Stanley Cup Playoffs while accumulating an all-time postseason record of 88-82 in 170 games, the ninth-most playoff games coached behind the bench. Laviolette is joined by Scotty Bowman, Dick Irvin and Mike Keenan as the only four coaches in NHL history to reach the Stanley Cup Final with three different franchises, having also done so with Philadelphia (2010) and Nashville (2017). He is also one of four coaches to win five consecutive Game 7’s in Stanley Cup Playoff history.

A native of Franklin, Mass., Laviolette has coached his teams to the 50-win plateau three times and the 100-point mark in eight different seasons, including the 2017-18 campaign where he led the Predators to a franchise-best 117 points with 53 wins (53-18-11) to earn his first President’s Trophy as a head coach. His second came in 2023-24 after guiding the Rangers to 55 wins, the most in a single season of his coaching career, with 114 points. Over the course of his coaching career, Laviolette has been named a Jack Adams Finalist twice (2006, 2015) and an NHL All-Star Coach on four occasions (2011, 2015, 2018, 2024).

Prior to entering the NHL coaching ranks, Laviolette served as head coach for the Wheeling Nailers of the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) in 1997-98. He then spent two seasons (1998-00) as the head coach of the Providence Bruins of the American Hockey League (AHL), capturing the 1999 Calder Cup Championship and earning AHL Coach of the Year honors in his first season after coaching the Bruins to an AHL-best 56-16-4-4 following their 19-49-7-5 record the year prior to his arrival. Laviolette was promoted to an assistant for Boston in 2000-01.

Internationally, Laviolette has served on several coaching staffs for the United States, including the 2014 Olympic Games, three IIHF World Championships (2004 – bronze, 2005, 2014) and one World Cup of Hockey (2005). As a player, he appeared in 12 career NHL games with the New York Rangers in 1988-89 and has played in parts of 11 seasons of minor professional hockey between the AHL and International Hockey League (IHL).