With another Capitals early exit, is Peter Laviolette on the hot seat?

The Washington Capitals suffered another first round exit yet again. It was the fourth straight year. While head coach Peter Laviolette hasn’t been responsible for all four Caps first round exits but he was behind the bench for the last two.

The Caps were simply outplayed against the Boston Bruins a year ago in five games. That was Laviolette’s first season as head coach of the Caps. OK that was just one year.

The next year the Caps got bounced in six games including three games that the Caps very well should have won. Because of that I wouldn’t say it was entirely Laviolette’s fault and that it was on the team for failing to close out and protect leads.

When the Capitals hired Laviolette the sides agreed to a three year contract. Low and behold, we are now entering the third year of that contract and as far as we know there hasn’t been any talks on an extension. And if there are, none of us know about it.

General Manager Brian MacLellan said on breakdown day: 

“I think we’re going to keep that (contract stuff) between management and the coaching staff. I thought [Laviolette] did a good job. I thought the game plan in the playoffs — we had a good year.”

To be fair, Laviolette was dealt a challenging hand all season long as the Caps were decimated by injuries and COVID-19. They were without T.J. Oshie, Nicklas Backstrom, and Anthony Mantha among others for extended periods of time. And now they’ll be without Tom Wilson for six to eight months.

MacLellan added:

“He managed a difficult situation with the amount of injuries we had to our forwards. He got us to the point of the playoffs, a 100-point season. The game plan I think was good in the playoffs. We executed it. We did well. We had moments where we didn’t execute it, and it came back to hurt us.”

Laviolette had just completed his 20th season coaching an NHL team. His .641 points percentage with the Capitals over the last two years is the highest of any team he’s coached. The Caps are his fifth team that he coached. However, in the playoffs the Caps have the lowest point percentage at just .273. No surprises there really since they haven’t won a playoff series since the 2018 Cup run.

So is Laviolette on the hot seat? I wouldn’t say so yet. I would wait and see how next season plays out and then if the team gets off to a cold start, then I’d start to worry if I was him.