Peter Laviolette coached the Caps — now he’s trying to eliminate them
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Greg Wyshynski, ESPN
NEW YORK — The past three times the Washington Capitals made the Stanley Cup playoffs, Peter Laviolette was behind the bench. But this time, it’s the opposing bench, as the New York Rangers coach tries to eliminate the Capitals from the postseason.
According to ESPN Stats & Information research, this is only the eighth time in Stanley Cup playoff history that a head coach has faced the team that dismissed him in the previous season. The Rangers have a 1-0 lead in their first-round series against Washington, with Game 2 Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden.
“On the positive side, it was great to be part of a great organization, great city and a fan base that loves their team and is passionate about their year,” Laviolette said of his time in Washington. “From a disappointment standpoint, it was not being able to make any noise in the playoffs despite having the opportunities.”
There would be a certain irony to the Rangers beating the Capitals in the first round, as that’s when Laviolette’s two postseasons in Washington ended in 2021 and 2022.
The Capitals missed the playoffs last season — only the second time in 16 years that Alex Ovechkin didn’t see the postseason — which led to what GM Brian MacLellan described as a mutual parting of ways between the team and Laviolette after three unremarkable seasons.
Washington’s loss was the Rangers’ gain. When New York fired coach Gerard Gallant after two seasons, it turned to Laviolette with a three-year commitment. The results have been historically good for the Blueshirts, who won the Presidents’ Trophy for having the league’s best record and had the third-best points percentage (.695) in franchise history.
That record earned the Rangers a first-round series against Washington, the second wild-card team in the Eastern Conference. And it earned Laviolette a reunion with some familiar faces one year after the Capitals let him go.
COACHES HAVE FACED their employer from the prior season in consecutive playoffs. Dallas Stars coach Pete DeBoer went against his former team, the Vegas Golden Knights, in the Western Conference finals last season. DeBoer actually had experienced this previously, meeting the Florida Panthers in the 2012 playoffs during his first year as coach of the New Jersey Devils.
Other coaches facing their former teams one year later are:
The combined record of these coaches in “revenge” series: 6-1, with DeBoer’s loss to the Golden Knights last season the only blemish.
Laviolette took over the Capitals in 2020. Washington followed its Stanley Cup win in 2018 under Barry Trotz with two first-round exits under his replacement, Todd Reirden. Laviolette was brought in to maximize the remaining contention window for Ovechkin and his veteran teammates.
“I thought the first couple of years, we were in a good position to try to get into the playoffs, make some noise and make a push,” Laviolette said. “Last year was a little bit tougher. We were dealing with a lot of things all year, but especially at the end.”
The Capitals ended up 12 points out of a playoff spot. MacLellan claims the door was open to have Laviolette return for a fourth season.
“I think he’s a good coach. I think he’s a good person. I think we were open [to it],” he said.
But after feedback from players and a conversation with Laviolette, it was decided they would part ways.
At the time, Capitals winger T.J. Oshie said “it’s the ugly part of the business” when Laviolette was let go, but he put his faith in management that it was the right call.
“I think he had some tough circumstances with injuries during his tenure here,” Oshie said. “But I’ve said since day one that I trust Mac in his ability to put a winning team on the ice, and the coaches are involved with that.”
In the end, things appear to have worked out for the best for both the coach and his former team.
LAVIOLETTE TOOK OVER a Rangers team that needed his defensive structure and encouragement to play with more pace, which turned it into a serious Stanley Cup contender. The Capitals hired Spencer Carbery, 42, who was an assistant coach with Toronto after three seasons as the Capitals’ AHL coach in Hershey. His own defensive system helped Washington emerge from a wild-card bubble pileup to return to the playoffs, while his age positions him well for the team’s ongoing youth movement.
“Very poised,” Oshie said of Carbery. “He’s very good at the message that he sends to the team. He’s very good at timing with what the message is and what it needs to be. He definitely came in not looking like a first-year head coach.”
Carbery isn’t the only new face for the Capitals. Laviolette, 59, coached just over a dozen players who are on the Washington roster for this series.
“It might be a bit more strange for guys that have been here for a while that had him for three years here. But I only had him for one year and we got along really well,” center Dylan Strome said. “I had my best year at the time when he was my coach. Very open and very honest with me as my coach, and I’ll always appreciate him for that.”
Still there are veterans who remain on the roster that Laviolette knows well.
“I think it goes both ways. I think they also have an insight into me and my systems,” the coach said. “But that was the case going into the four games we played in the regular season.”
The Capitals’ power play is filled with veterans Laviolette had all three seasons in Washington: Ovechkin, Oshie, Tom Wilson and John Carlson, for example.
The Rangers’ penalty kill, ranked third in the regular season, shut down the Caps’ power play in Game 1, as it went 0-for-4. In four regular-season games, Washington was 0-for-10 against New York.
Did coaching the Capitals give Laviolette insight on how to stifle their power play, including Ovechkin?
“I guess a little bit because you know the personnel. But that’s not how we went about our business,” the coach said after Game 1. “We do it more based on video and teaching and showing. I imagine that’s how most teams operate. You take a look at what you’re going to be up against, you get some video clips, you bring it into a meeting, you try to talk about a game plan on what you want to do and go from there.
“I know where Ovi’s going to stand. I know he might move around a little bit, but I think everybody else does too. It’s more about what they’re trying to do out there.”
BOTH THE CAPITALS and their former coach have downplayed the insights they carry into the series against each other — or really any semblance of extra motivation for one to eliminate the other.
“No matter who we play, we’re going to have a pre-scout on them. Not really strange at all. We’ll just prepare like we would anybody else,” Oshie said.
“It’s a business. We’re all here for a business,” Ovechkin said.
“The Rangers have had a very, very good season, and he’s a great coach,” Strome said. “With the way they play, we played that way last year. I think a little familiarity never hurts. But he has that with us as well. We’ll see how it plays out, but I know we’re all excited.”
Before the series, Laviolette said he “didn’t think about it much, to be honest with you” when asked about facing Washington in the playoffs after having coached them last season.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for the Capitals and the organization, their players,” he said. “They’ve obviously done some good things to make the playoffs. Our group’s done some good things to make the playoffs. The game gets decided out on the ice.”
Then again, facing a former employer is old hat for Laviolette at this point in his career.
“I’ve coached a lot of teams,” he said with a laugh, as the Rangers are his sixth NHL head-coaching stop.
“If this is the story, I’ll have a story every round, I hope.”
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Ryan S. Clark
Many of Mikko Rantanen’s greatest moments have come in a Colorado Avalanche sweater. It’s just that the most defining moment of his career came at their expense.
It wasn’t enough that the Dallas Stars were trailing by two goals. It was also the fact that Rantanen scored a hat trick in a string of four unanswered goals that saw his current team, the host Stars, eliminate his old team, the Avalanche, in a 4-2 win Saturday in Game 7 of the Western Conference quarterfinals at the American Airlines Center.
“Obviously, the feeling was incredible to win a series,” Rantanen said in his postgame media availability. “This series was not exactly what I expected. I expected a seven-game series, even before Game 1. The ups and downs in the series. … Belief was there with the group the whole time. Obviously, I was able to make a pay to get the first one and the crowd started to roll.”
The Stars, attempting to reach the conference finals a third straight time, will advance to the semifinal round in which they will await the winner of series featuring the St. Louis Blues and Winnipeg Jets. That encounter will be decided Sunday in Game 7 in Winnipeg.
Soon, the Stars’ collective focus will shift to another Central Division foe. But for now? The attention before, during, and after the game, was on Rantanen.
Part of what made the Avalanche-Stars series arguably the most intriguing first-round series in either conference was the fact it placed two 100-point teams that are in championship window against each other. But, it also came with several subplots with the notable being the team that traded quite a bit to land Rantanen — with the hope he could win them a Stanley Cup now — needed him to defeat the team that he won a championship with back in 2022.
With one assist through the first four games, there was a discussion about if the Stars could manage to win with a sputtering Rantanen on top of the fact they were already without two of their best players in defenseman Miro Heiskanen and forward Jason Robertson.
Rantanen responded with a three-point performance in Game 5, and a four-point performance in Game 6 only to then have a hand in each goal on Saturday. His first goal came on the power-play with 12:12 remaining in the third period when he found enough space to fire a wrist shot that beat MacKenzie Blackwood.
Then came the game-tying goal and the significance it carried. The Stars went on the power play went Avalanche forward Jack Drury was called for holding. Drury part of the trade package the Carolina Hurricanes used to get Rantanen in late January before they would trade him to the Stars.
Drury’s penalty opened the door for Rantanen to score a game-tying goal that might be one of, if not, his signature salvo. Rantanen skated into the Avalanche zone in a 1-on-3 before he split two players before going around the net for a wrap-around goal that went off the skate of Samuel Girard with 6:14 left.
Three minutes later, the Stars received another power-play opportunity that saw Rantanen along with another former Avalanche forward in Matt Duchene work together to find Wyatt Johnston for the game-winning goal.
In the final minute, the Avalanche pulled Blackwood in the attempt to grab a late goal and force over time. Instead? Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger withstood a barrage that officially ended when Stars forward Tyler Seguin got the puck out of the zone only for Rantanen to skate in on an open net for the hat trick with three seconds left.
“I couldn’t care less who scored for them, I really couldn’t,” Avalanche captain and left winger Gabriel Landeskog said when asked about what it was like to watch Rantanen score a hat trick. “Mikko is one of my best friends and I love him, but I couldn’t care if he scored or if somebody else scored.”
For eight full seasons, Rantanen was part of a homegrown movement that saw the Avalanche go from finishing with what was then the worst record in the salary cap era back in 2016-17 to become a perennial favorite to win the Stanley Cup, which did they did in 2023, while also becoming a model for the need to build through the draft.
Building through stars such as Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, Landeskog and Rantanen allowed the Avalanche to become a success. As did the moves they made to get other key figures like Valeri Nichushkin and Devon Toews.
Like all teams in a championship window, the Avs were facing the prospect of possibly making a difficult decision. They had yet to agree to a new contract with Rantanen, who was a pending unrestricted free agent. Then, came the blockbuster trade that few throughout the league saw coming.
The Avalanche traded Rantanen in a three-team trade that saw them get Martin Necas and Drury along with two draft picks. Rantanen’s time with the Carolina Hurricanes was limited to just two goals and six points in 13 games.
Despite the fact the Hurricanes are also among that cadre of championship contenders, Rantanen struggled to find cohesion in Raleigh. Rather than run the risk of watching leave for nothing in free agency, the Hurricanes put out feelers to a few teams with the Stars being one of them.
A long-time admirer of Rantanen, the Stars packaged two first-round picks, three second-round picks and former prized prospect Logan Stankoven to get Rantanen. They then signed him to an eight-year contract worth $12 million annually.
“It’s two things: It’s where our team’s at, and it’s Mikko Rantanen,” Stars general manager Jim Nill told ESPN back in March.
Rantanen finished the regular season with five goals and 18 points in 20 games prior to the showdown with his former team.
Not only did Rantanen’s hat trick condemn his former team to their second first-round exit since winning the Stanley Cup, but it continued a theme of former Avalanche eliminating their previous employers.
The Avalanche and Stars faced each other in last season’s Western Conference semifinal that saw Duchene, a former Colorado first-round pick, score the game-winning goal.
A year later, it was another former Avalanche first-round pick who delivered the devastating blow.
“It seems pretty fitting,” Johnston said about Rantanen. “Obviously, we want to win for each other and I think that goes a little extra when it’s a guy like that who is such a big part of our team and was there for a long time and everyone knows the trade that went on. It’s so awesome. We’re so happy as a group for him.”
As if Rantanen scoring a hat trick in a four-goal comeback wasn’t enough, there’s also the fact that this is now the ninth consecutive Game 7 that Stars coach Peter DeBoer has won his career.
DeBoer’s nine wins in Game 7s broke a tie with Darryl Sutter for the most in NHL history. It was also DeBoer’s third game 7 wins with the Stars.
“I felt something was going to happen,” DeBoer said. “But I could not have predicted that.”
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