The Rangers are making some changes behind the bench. The team has dismissed head coach Peter Laviolette and associate head coach Phil Housley, per a team announcement. GM Chris Drury released the following 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.
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.
Laviolette departs the Rangers after just two seasons with the team, one that went quite well and one that was anything but. In his first season behind the bench in New York, Laviolette helped guide the Rangers to the Presidents’ Trophy with the team putting up 114 points. They had a solid postseason run to back that up before ultimately falling to Florida in the Eastern Conference Final.
That had expectations quite high heading into this season with the bulk of the core coming back. However, it was a struggle right out of the gate for New York, leading to Drury trying to shake up his roster. Jacob Trouba joined Barclay Goodrow as veteran leaders moved out while Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad were also in trade speculation at times during the season. They never could get things on track, leading to them selling at the trade deadline and ultimately missing the playoffs. The end result was a 29-point dropoff, leaving them six behind New Jersey and Montreal for the final spots in the Metropolitan Division and the Wild Card respectively.
Laviolette had one year left on his contract, per Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic (Twitter link). He’s no stranger to being hired and fired as that has now happened six different times. Over his 23-year coaching career, the 60-year-old has a 894-562-186 record, good for a .589 points percentage. His 1,594 games as a head coach rank ninth in NHL history and it’s possible that he’ll have a chance to add to that total with Anaheim currently having a vacancy while several other organizations evaluate whether or not to make a change from the interim head coaches they finished with.
As for Housley, he departs the Rangers after two seasons as well having been added to the coaching staff when Laviolette was hired. The long-time blueliner has served as an assistant coach with New York, Arizona, and Nashville while also having a brief stint with Buffalo as their head coach. The 61-year-old should garner some consideration for other assistant positions around the league this summer.
Today’s announcement did not mention other assistants Dan Muse and Michael Peca. Mollie Walker of the New York Post reports (Twitter link) that they will have an opportunity to remain on the staff of the new head coach so for now at least, they remain with the team.
The Rangers enter the summer with less than $10MM in cap space, per PuckPedia, and several players in need of new contracts including defenseman K’Andre Miller and winger Will Cuylle. As a result, shaking up the roster could be a challenge for Drury which will make his next coaching hire that much more important as the new bench boss will be tasked with getting much more out of this veteran group than Laviolette was able to this season.
Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images.