Caps Cut Ties With Peter Laviolette
Decision presages a busy off season for Washington hockey
In a move that I expected, the Washington Capitals announced on Friday that they would not be renewing the contract of Head Coach Peter Laviolette after the expiration of the three-year deal he signed before the start of the 2020-21 NHL season.
I don’t know how much more there is to write about that I haven’t written about since I re-started Off Wing Opinion on Substack in February. The Caps have an aging core that isn’t performing up to the contracts that they’ve signed, but because that core is locked up in long term deals in an era of the salary cap, restructuring the roster while staying competitive will be a challenging proposition.
On Saturday morning, better known in NHL cities where the home team didn’t make the playoffs as “Breakdown Day,” Caps General Manager Brian MacLellan outlined the why behind the parting of the ways between Laviolette and the organization.
MacLellan said the Capitals were "open" to bringing Laviolette -- whose contract was set to expire on June 30 -- back, but wanted to take some time this week to speak with players and ownership before coming to a decision. Instead, Laviolette requested a meeting with MacLellan on Friday morning, and the conversation went in a direction where both parties came to the conclusion it was time to move on.
"I think he’s a good coach. I think he’s a good person. I like working with him," MacLellan said. "I think we were open. I guess I wanted some time with players, wanted some time with everybody around. Just get some opinions and kind of go from there.”
Feel free to read between the lines. So after two first round playoff exits and a playoff miss in three years where the roster was beset by injuries, Laviolette, who is the only NHL head coach to take three different teams to the Stanley Cup Finals (winning with Carolina in 2006), will be moving on. He’ll catch on somewhere else, perhaps before the start of next season.
As for MacLellan, the task of “trying to stay competitive while getting younger,” is in the offing and it’s not an enviable one, especially when the organization has implied it is committed to keeping certain veterans on the payroll to retirement. Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, John Carlson and T.J. Oshie are all on the wrong side of 30. Evgeny Kuznetsov and Anthony Mantha are underperforming their contracts by a significant amount. If MacLellan is serious about remaking his top two lines, as he stated on Saturday, both of those players likely need to be moved.
The good news: MacLellan has established a track record where he’s not afraid to shake things up. Last offseason, he moved dramatically to cut ties with the organization’s top three goalies in favor of free agents Darcy Kuemper and Charlie Lindgren. To bolster the forward lines, he made low-risk, high-reward signings of free agents Dylan Strome and Sonny Milano. Both paid off and were rewarded with long-term, cap-friendly contracts. He did the same on the blue line with free agent Erik Gustafsson, who was a key piece along with a first round draft pick in the deal to acquire defenseman Rasmus Sandin from Toronto.
So yes, MacLellan found a way to get younger. Unfortunately, as is often the case with an aging roster, injuries can undo the best of plans. As MacLellan noted on Saturday, keep an eye on this starting with the 2023 NHL Draft, currently scheduled for late June in Nashville. That’s when things will start to move. Expect some action.
Did I mention the Stanley Cup Playoffs start tonight? Things will be quiet on F Street here in Washington for the first time in nine years with the Caps out of the playoffs, but there are still more than a few interesting storylines to follow. I’ve already submitted a bracket on NHL.com. For my final four, I like Boston and the Rangers in the East. Out West, I think it’s Edmonton and Dallas. The Oilers will break through to the Finals where they’ll meet the mighty Bruins, who will defy the odds and win it all.
If you haven’t entered The Off Wing Stanley Cup Challenge, please leave your prediction in the comments on that post by 6:00 pm US EDT tonight (April 17) to play.
As the Caps were playing their season finale vs the New Jersey Devils last Thursday night, a man was shot outside the Capital One Arena. The victim was taken to the hospital. And the gunman is still at large. I only mention it as I asked about a month ago if it was dangerous to go see a game in the District. It’s hard to conclude that it isn’t. Furthermore, yesterday afternoon saw a shooting in an apartment building’s fitness center near George Washington University. These are areas of the city that are not normally plagued by gunfire. It might seem obtuse to notice such things while other neighborhoods in the city are dealing with far worse, but it ought to be noted.
Eric McErlain lives and works in the Washington, D.C. area. He blogged at Off Wing Opinion regularly from 2002-2009. In addition to writing at Off Wing, his work has appeared at The Sporting News, AOL FanHouse, NBC Sports.com, Deadspin, The Hockey Writers and Pro Football Weekly and The Washington Post. In 1993, he wrote one of the first columns in a daily newspaper covering fantasy football for The Washington Times.