The New York Rangers fired coach Peter Laviolette on Saturday after the team finished out of the playoffs one year after they won the Presidents’ Trophy as the top regular-season team.
‘After finishing with the best regular season record in the NHL a year ago and making a trip to the Eastern Conference Final, we came into this season with high expectations for ourselves,’ general manager Chris Drury said. ‘Quite simply, we failed to meet those expectations. We must all do better – myself included.
‘As we head into next season and beyond, I felt that a change was necessary in order to give us the best chance to achieve our goals as an organization. Our search for a new head coach will begin immediately.”
Associate head coach Phil Housley also was fired.
The Rangers finished with 16 fewer wins this season and missed the playoffs by six points, even though they began the season at 12-4-1 after a relatively quiet offseason following a trip to the Eastern Conference final. The culprit was a 4-15 slide that dropped them to .500 and led Drury to let other teams know he was willing to talk trade.
Trades followed. Captain Jacob Trouba was dealt to the Anaheim Ducks on Dec. 6 and forward Kaapo Kakko was traded to the Seattle Kraken 12 days later. A late January trade for J.T. Miller gave the team a bump but in the end, it wasn’t enough. Ryan Lindgren and Reilly Smith were moved before the deadline and though the Rangers briefly moved into the second wild-card spot, they became the fourth NHL team to go from Presidents’ Trophy winner to out of the playoffs (also the 1992 and 1993 Rangers).
The Rangers ranked 19th in goals against and 27th in shots against per game. Igor Shesterkin, who signed an extension that will make him the NHL’s highest-paid goalie, faced the most shots in the league and had a career-worst 2.86 goals-against average.
Their power play dropped from third last year to 28th this season. Chris Kreider, Artemi Panarin, Adam Fox, Vincent Trocheck and Mika Zibanejad all had noticeable drops in points.
Drury will be hiring his third coach since was named general manager in 2021. Gerard Gallant, like Laviolette, lasted only two seasons. Laviolette, the winningest U.S.-born NHL coach, was let go with one year left on his contract.
His firing was announced soon after the Ducks fired coach Greg Cronin. There were five coaching changes during the regular season: Boston Bruins, St. Louis Blues, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings and Philadelphia Flyers.
The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.