Peter Laviolette Is The New Head Coach Of Your Washington Capitals

NHL - "Peter is a successful NHL head coach who has won a Stanley Cup and brings a wealth of experience to our team," said MacLellan. "We feel he is a great communicator who will motivate our players to play with passion, structure and discipline, while helping our young players reach their potential. In addition, he is a high-character individual who is highly respected for his coaching pedigree, all of which make him the ideal person to lead our team to compete for the Stanley Cup."

And there we have it, our new head coach, Peter Vaviolette. It seemed like it came down to Gallant or Lavs, and ultimately they went in this direction. I consider it a win because it's *not* Mike Babcock, so at least we have that going for us. Would be interested to know why the choice wasn't Gallant, but perhaps we will find that out later.

Vaviolette is obviously a very veteran coach who has been all around the league, including winning a Cup in Carolina.

With each of his previous NHL coaching stops, the team saw an overall improvement from their season prior to his arrival. The Islanders finished with 96 points and the eighth-best record in the League in 2001-02 after finishing the previous season 30th in the NHL with 52 points. In 2005-06, Laviolette's first full season with the Hurricanes, Carolina finished with 112 points and captured the Stanley Cup after finishing with 76 points the year prior. With Philadelphia, the Flyers improved to 106 points in 2010-11 after finishing with 88 points in 2009-10. Laviolette led the Predators to 104 points in his first season in 2014-15 from 88 points the season prior. 

While not quite the "player's coach", he does get the most out of his guys and has that old school mentality about him. A bit of a psycho, but we'll talk about that when something happens. And the last time we hired a coach previously in Nashville, that worked out pretty decently, so hey, why not try again?

So hey, maybe it's not the flashiest hire, or the fans top pick which was clearly Gallant, but Lavs doesn't suck either. Hopefully Ovi and co buy in and they right this ship. And thank you for not hiring Babcock, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.