Why Peter Laviolette Is a Good Fit as the Rangers' Next Head Coach

The game of NHL head coach musical chairs has stopped once again with Peter Laviolette landing on Broadway. The 58-year-old will be announced as the 37th head coach in franchise history Tuesday.

The Rangers, following a demoralizing first-round exit, fired Gerard Gallant after just his second season on the job. He leaves New York in search of his fifth NHL head coaching job and is replaced by a 58-year-old who will soon command his sixth NHL team. Retread out and retread in.

Sort of.

AP Photo/Adam Hunger

Hockey fans are rightly critical of the sport's struggle to embrace diversity and innovation in deference to familiarity and comfort. Or, in the worst cases, full-blown cronyism.

But to categorize Laviolette and Gallant as interchangeable would be a disservice. Specifically, to Laviolette.

For one, their resumés are incomparable. Gallant wore out his welcome rapidly everywhere he has been, following up immediate success that was sometimes goaltending-driven and fumbling once the team needed new ideas.

Laviolette, meanwhile, typically stays where he ends up. Prior to his three seasons in Washington, the former Rangers defenseman had stints in Nashville (six years), Philadelphia (five years), and Carolina (five years.) He reached the Stanley Cup Final with each of those teams, winning with the Hurricanes in 2006.

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His longevity in multiple places speaks to, if nothing else, at least a belief from his superiors in his ability to build and sustain something over a length of time; something that Gallant has never inspired. And three Cup Finals appearances with three different teams are hard to knock. At a minimum, he maintained control of the locker room and did not impede good teams. That is often half the battle for NHL head coaches.

There is a particular reason to believe that Laviolette might be the right hire for the Rangers from a tactical perspective. Hard-bent on the idea that the team needed to be more physical and tougher to play against, Gallant attempted to instill a forechecking identity that relied on lots of throwing pucks forward aimlessly and chasing them down.

The tactics were sloppily applied. Yet it's difficult to imagine a well-executed approach in this mold. The Carolina Hurricanes aren't just a great forechecking team because of head coach Rod Brind'Amour's tactical genius but because management builds him a roster that plays directly into his desired approach.

The Rangers were not and are not built to play like that. The likes of Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad, and Chytil bring significant speed in possession while others such as Artemi Panarin, Vincent Trocheck, and Alexis Lafreniére are highly skilled puck handlers.

As currently constructed, this team is not built to send pucks behind defenders and chase. Rather, the Rangers' makeup demands lots of creating zone entries with possession and scoring from quick sequences. Lots of speed on transition rushes and lots of east-west passing upon entering the zone.

That should have been all the more obvious once Vladimir Tarasenko and Patrick Kane arrived.

They tried a forechecking game regardless. The results against the Devils were quite obvious. The Rangers could not gain the zone against the Devils and, when they did, could not set up a cycle. The Devils were simply too fast to pucks and too skilled at getting them back into the neutral zone quickly.

Enter Laviolette. Both Washington and Nashville played styles more in-line with a rush-offense initiative. Both teams would defend well and defenders would send the puck forward for quick strikes on rushes the other way.

In Washington, this rush offense was catalyzed by high-end puck movers in the back such as John Carlson, Dimitri Orlov, and Nick Jensen while Nashville had Roman Josi, Mattias Ekholm, and PK Subban.

This is where things become dicey in New York. As the data collected by All Three Zones indicates, the defensive group was very poor at moving the puck up the ice with possession last season.

www.AllThreeZones.com

Adam Fox is one of the league's top puck-moving defensemen. Ryan Lindgren is competent, making respectable passes up the ice when he isn't deferring to Fox. The second pairing was atrocious at zone exits. Braden Schneider has the ability to match Lindgren as a secondary puck-mover but he received no help on the left side and has been forced in over his head.

It will be tough for general manager Chris Drury to build a defense in Laviolette's image. The club is extremely tight on cap space without any obvious potential departures who can make room for much beyond a frugal depth defenseman.

This is where Laviolette must earn his paycheck. If the team can't improve its breakouts and zone entries through additions, then it will be up to the coaching staff to make the necessary adjustments. Trouba had better results in Winnipeg. K'Andre Miller certainly has wheels. Zac Jones, the team's top defense prospect, plays like Fox but suffered an identity crisis under Gallant.

Some of the adjustments must come via Laviolette and his assistants getting the Non-Fox defensemen to improve their zone exits individually. The other half of the equation will be coaching the team to break out of their own defensive zone in cohesive, supporting structures that were lacking under Gallant.

Unless management can pull off something astounding to open up significant cap space, the Rangers will return with close to the same roster, only without the trade-deadline acquisitions. Drury is putting his hopes in Laviolette to prove that the roster he built struggled not because of makeup but rather tactics.