Peter Laviolette’s arrival in Los Angeles was one of the more significant coaching moves of the offseason, but not everyone treated it that way.
Ken Holland brought in the former New York Rangers head coach to replace Jim Hiller behind the Kings bench, a change that drew mixed reactions around the league. Yet one offseason coaching grade went in a direction that was tough to square: Laviolette was ranked below Hiller, a comparison that looks shaky when the two hires are lined up side by side.
That’s where the criticism of the Maple Leafs’ decision comes into focus. Toronto hired Hiller to be its next head coach this offseason, even though he had just been let go by Los Angeles after multiple years of first-round exits in the postseason. Hiller never got the Kings past the opening round during his time as head coach, which made his market carry plenty of uncertainty.
Laviolette, by contrast, brought a far more established résumé to the table. He has more than two decades of NHL head coaching experience, multiple trips to the Stanley Cup Finals, and a Stanley Cup ring from 2006 with the Carolina Hurricanes. In a league where coaching hires often come with a leap of faith, that kind of track record matters.
For Holland and the Kings, the goal wasn’t just a new voice. They were looking for someone with real playoff credibility and a coach who could help shake loose an offense that had grown stale in recent postseason appearances. Laviolette fit that brief better than most of the available options this summer.
None of that guarantees the Kings will get the result they want. But it does make the hire look like one of the safer bets on the coaching market. Putting a recently fired coach ahead of someone with Laviolette’s background ignores why both teams were making changes in the first place.
He may not have been the flashiest name available, but the skepticism around the move feels overdone. The Kings hired one of the NHL’s most accomplished coaches to address clear shortcomings, and that decision deserves more credit than it has received.
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