A Sitdown with LA Kings Head Coach Peter Laviolette on the Insider Show!

Happy Friday, Insiders!

Presenting Peter Laviolette, Pt. 2.

Laviolette sat down with Josh Schaefer and I after his press conference on Wednesday to join us for the latest episode of the Insider Show.

I enjoyed the chance to hear from him in a quieter setting. After listening to what he said during the press conference, we had the chance to ask him some different kinds of questions, building on what he said during the public availability. Pulling a few selects below that I thought were interesting.

On the way a Peter Laviolette plays on the ice
I’d like to hope that we’re on the attack. When you watch the Finals right now, the game that’s being played, with Vegas and Carolina, it’s physical, it’s fast, it’s on the attack, there’s goals being scored everywhere. A 4-0 lead doesn’t matter anymore, if you’re on the attack. You’d like to think that, throughout the course of my career, that’s where my identity has been and where my mindset has been.

On things that are important for him to build, beyond just tactics and style of play
It’s about putting something in place that the players believe in. When they leave the locker room and they head out onto the ice, it’s almost as if they know they’re going to win and then they go out with the confidence to play the game hard and play the game the right way. For me, that grows the room in volumes. That grows confidence inside of the room. That’s when you can really experience growth, whether it be from a veteran player or a young player.

On building a new culture, as opposed to relying on what was successful several years ago
There has been success here with the Kings in 12 and 14, but I don’t think we should rely on that. I think it’s amazing what they did, I remember those teams, but I think they built something in the room that they thought they could be successful and they went out, they battled for it and ultimately they reached success. You’ve got to respect that, but I don’t want to hang my hat on that, nor do I want to do that on anything that happened last year. I think it’s up to us to create our culture, create our environment and create our business plan on how we’re going to move as a team. With that, you hope the wins come. With that, comes the confidence. With that comes the swagger. That’s when things start to elevate and go in the right direction. I’m focused on moving forward and the future.

Here is why I pulled those quotes – they are different than what has been said for some time now.

It’s not speaking about how good the Kings are at defending. It’s not relying on and trying to carryover the culture and approach from 2014. It’s just different and it’s time for the Kings to be different. Laviolette has found success in a lot of places but he was very careful in multiple answers to look forward, not backwards. There have been a lot of times over the years here where past success was overly relied upon. It’s good to take things from teams that won but this group, as it is assembled, has not won anything. Players on the team have won but this team hasn’t won. It’s encouraging to hear him speak about building something new, starting with Day 1 of training camp. He placed a lot of emphasis on that, with the importance of starting strong that first day and taking it from there. It won’t be perfect on Day 1 but Day 2 has to be better than Day 1. Day 10 has to be better than Day 2. Game 10 has to be better than Day 10. Laviolette has found early success when joining new organizations and he seems to have a playbook of how he approaches those starts. He is inheriting a team that has been asked to play a certain way for a long time. For some players here, it’s how they’ve been instructed to play for their entire NHL careers. No matter how you look at it, Laviolette wants to do things differently and he’s looking ahead. I think that is a welcomed mentality for this organization to take and now his challenges will be implementing these philosophies and strategies with this Kings team, beginning in September.

Full interview is embedded above! Hoping to chat with Laviolette again sometime in July to drill down a bit further into the team, once trades and free agency have potentially shaped the roster a little bit further and he has had more time to assess things. I think that’s the natural next step here, once we have a better sense of what the group of 20 will look like, but we’re not there yet. Change is expected, in one form or another, so we’ll have to wait and see how things progress on that front, but his voice will be important when we get to that point.