Is Peter Laviolette on the hotseat heading into 2022?
After four straight first round exits since winning the Stanley Cup, two of which came under Peter Laviolette’s watch, a big question facing the Washington Capitals is that is their bench boss on the hot seat?
The short answer is yes. The long answer is the purpose of this article.
Laviolette enters the final year of the three year contract that he signed in September of 2020. That’s kind of why he is on the hot seat. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. It means there hasn’t been any talks of a contract extension, at least to our knowledge.
On breakdown day general manager Brian MacLellan was asked about the contract status of Laviolette. He said any talks about a potential extension will remain out of the public eye for now.
GMBM said exactly this regarding the situation:
“I think we’re going to keep that 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.”
MacLellan does have a point though. Laviolette did a pretty decent job last season given the hand he was dealt. The Caps had a lot of injuries last season to a lot of key players like Nicklas Backstrom, T.J. Oshie, Anthony Mantha, and others.
Then the Caps lost Tom Wilson in the playoffs as he suffered a left knee injury that turned out to be ACL surgery.
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 has coached the Caps to a .641 points percentage up to this point over his two years coaching. That’s the highest points percentage of any team he’s coached. It was his 20th season behind a bench and the Caps are his fifth team.
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Although that .641 points percentage is pretty good, the Caps have the lowest playoff win loss percentage of any of his five previous teams he’s coached at just .273. Needless to say, this upcoming season is huge not just for the Caps but for Laviolette. Unlike the last two years though, at least the Caps have a goalie.