Peter Laviolette will be the head coach of his seventh different NHL team.
The Los Angeles Kings officially hired the veteran bench boss on Monday, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, filling a vacancy left after they fired Jim Hiller midseason this past year. DJ Smith served as the club’s interim head coach but was not retained after the Kings were swept in the first round of the playoffs by the Colorado Avalanche.
Laviolette did not coach in the NHL this past season, his first-ever full year without a job, outside of the 2004-05 lockout, since he became the head coach of the ECHL’s Wheeling Nailers during the 1997-98 campaign. In the NHL, he has served as head coach of the New York Islanders, Carolina Hurricanes, Philadelphia Flyers, Nashville Predators, Washington Capitals, and New York Rangers.
The 61-year-old former Rangers defenseman was fired by the team in 2025 after they missed the postseason. Laviolette lasted just two years with his former club, taking the Rangers to the Eastern Conference Finals at the end of the 2023-24 campaign. Before taking command of New York, Laviolette lasted just three years with the Capitals and also missed the playoffs in his last season in DC.
With both the Rangers and Capitals, Laviolette received criticism for consistently preferring veteran players over younger, developing players, making the latter often healthy scratches. He was also directly accused by New York media of having the Rangers “quit on him,” and general manager Chris Drury said he was not the right coach for the organization to “achieve their goals.”
Overall, Laviolette has coached 1,594 career games in the NHL, notching an 846-562-161 record (and 25 ties). He currently sits ninth on the all-time list for games coached, seventh in wins, and eighth in losses. Laviolette has reached the Stanley Cup Final three times, once each with the Predators, Flyers, and Hurricanes. His Carolina team won the 2006 Stanley Cup, the franchise’s lone championship.
With the Kings, Laviolette will be reunited with a few familiar faces from his past, including Artemi Panarin (NYR), Kevin Fiala (NSH), and Darcy Kuemper (WSH).
