Former Flyers Coach Peter Laviolette Joining Elite Group of Coaches

By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 

When the Nashville Predators won Game 6 to advance to the Stanley Cup Final last Monday, head coach Peter Laviolette joined elite company.

Only three other coaches in NHL history had led three different franchises to a Stanley Cup Final. Laviolette, who had taken the Carolina Hurricanes to the 2005-06 title and the Flyers to the 2009-10 Final, became the fourth.

Laviolette has coached in over 1,000 regular season games, posting a 518-363-25-99 record. He has a .577 regular-season win percentage. With 64 wins in 118 playoff games, a .542 win percentage, Laviolette joined the elite company by taking his third team to a Stanley Cup Final.

That is a Hall-of-Fame resume.

It’s been almost four years since the Flyers parted ways with Laviolette three games into the 2013-14 season, his fifth with the organization. Many fans still clamor for the days when a coach of Laviolette’s makeup — the passion, intensity and desire to win — served as bench boss of the Flyers.

In some ways, the argument is fair. The Flyers put assistant coach Craig Berube in the interim role, then made him full-time head coach for one season before letting him go as well after a dismal 2014-15 season.

Dave Hakstol’s first season, as a still relatively unknown head coach, was impressive given the circumstances and expectations. But the Flyers coach, preparing to enter his third season, has drawn the ire of fans for lineup decisions and a system that ultimately didn’t fit the current roster, leading to another early offseason in 2016-17.

And through it all, both coaches were very stoic in their approach. You don’t get much emotion out of Hakstol. Berube couldn’t live up to what Laviolette had left behind.

The thing about Laviolette and his success in Nashville actually goes right back to his comments about achieving the feat of taking three teams to the Stanley Cup Final. What does it mean to him?

“It probably means I got fired a lot,” Laviolette said. “I’m fortunate to be here working. I’m fortunate David Poile gave me a job. When you do that, you’re not thinking about things like that, you’re thinking about coming to work.”

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Truth be told, Laviolette was in his second season with Carolina when they reached the top of the hockey world, winning the 2005-06 Stanley Cup. He was fired three seasons later.

Laviolette was still without a job in December of 2009. That’s when the Flyers came calling. The following June, the Flyers were playing in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final. No one needs to be reminded of how that ended.

And here is Laviolette now, over 10 seasons removed from his first championship run in Carolina, taking the Nashville Predators to the Final in his third season there.

Notice a pattern?

It’s not meant to question Laviolette’s coaching abilities. Moreso, it’s that every coach, even the greatest, go through a time when their time is up somewhere. When you look at the list, there are two Hall of Fame names Laviolette joined on Monday night. They are Dick Irvin and Scotty Bowman. Mike Keenan is the other name in the group. Do you question their credentials?

Irvin coached in an era where coaches weren’t under such a microscope, and before the expansion era where going from one city to another was more of a possibility. To take three of the Original Six teams to the Final is extremely impressive.

Bowman has the most wins of any head coach in NHL history. Starting his coaching career as the first head coach of the St. Louis Blues, Bowman went to the Final three times before joining Montreal in 1971. The Canadiens won the Stanley Cup in his second season, and won four more during his tenure. After a stop in Buffalo, Bowman coached the Pittsburgh Penguins to their second Stanley Cup title in 1992. His legendary career closed out with a nine-year run in Detroit. The Red Wings won three Stanley Cup titles in that time.

Keenan started his career in Philadelphia, taking the Flyers to the Final in 1985 and 1987. He coached against Bowman in the 1992 Stanley Cup Final as the Blackhawks head coach. In 1994, he finally captured the Stanley Cup as the bench boss of the New York Rangers.

Laviolette now joins the group, proving his long-term success as a head coach in multiple markets.

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It’s not Laviolette’s style that becomes the tired part of his tenure in Carolina or Philadelphia. It’s the typical scapegoat method that ends him time in a particular city.

When Carolina was starting to decline after being the champion, the glory days were over. Time to go. When the Flyers started to experience less playoff success despite the efforts to be buyers in title pursuit, Laviolette entered a season with no margin for error. The team lost their first three games in 2013-14. Laviolette was fired after that.

What may have helped key Laviolette’s future success, now being seen on the grand scale of the Stanley Cup Final, was what he did with the rest of the 2013-14 season. He took the year off from the hockey operations end. He was part of the media, working for TSN. He took a step back, and essentially recharged when Nashville came calling. The rest is history.

For now, there is success in Nashville, proof that Laviolette’s style of playing with jam and passion and energy and always being on the attack while remaining mindful of the things that need to happen in the defensive zone are what make him a great coach.

Flyers fans certainly haven’t forgotten it. Many of them will be rooting on Laviolette and the Predators starting on Monday night.