How do you grade Laviolette and the coaching staff on the 23-24 season + playoffs?

[Peltz]

Just curious on where people sit with Lavi. At the end of round 2, I think we were all fairly happy with him.

I think he did a lot to improve the team and make adjustments throughout the season. The rest of the staff was able to help improve certain aspects of the game too like face offs.

But at the end of the day, a 4-2 ECF series loss is exactly where this team was two years ago with a less capable core roster (but better TDL acquisitions). Same result after the emergence of Laf, and a more experienced d-core. Same brilliant Shesterkin performance but getting smothered at 5v5.

I think we all see that the roster isn’t a cup contender against the most physical teams.

But do you think Lavi got the most out of them?

I feel like the round 2 win and subsequent 2 wins against Florida were all on Shesterkin’s play and a few individual heroics and not really due to truly better systemic team play.

The way this team loses is consistent throughout the last 3 years - unable to transition up the ice and no sustained forecheck.

Kakko and Chytil also took a step back under Lavi but I give them a pass due to injuries.

Zib was terrible all year except a handful games in the first 2 rounds. Just awful.

I definitely put part of that on Lavi.

But Tro and Laf being so much better is also something I have to give credit for. He gave Laf the chance he needed.

The rangers were also in every playoff game this year and suffered no blowouts so he gets a little credit there too for the better defensive structure in the neutral zone

I give him a B-

Edit - thanks to whoever added the poll.

Click to read more...

 

[TheBloodyNine]

C+. Which is miles away from the F for Gallant but still miles away from making this team good enough to win it all.

 

[haveandare]

Yea, B or B- is about where I’m at too. Didn’t appear to adjust to the Panthers gameplan. Maybe he tried though or even did adjust and the players just couldn’t make it work.

 

[Ruggs225]

I give him a B.

You could see there was structure in our system. He mad some decent in-game adjustments.


Where he fell off was his stubbornness in personnel, especially defense. He kept the defense pairs rhe same for essentially the entire year, and even after trouba was injured and we played better, we went back to the same 6z. Even in the playoffs.

His lack of change on the PP personnel also annoyed me. Especially since it was clear we werent getting it done in the conference finals. Why not put Laf there?

 

[CTTribe73]

A. He 100% squeezed every damn drop of blood out of this particular stone.

Sometimes it ain’t the carpenter….its the tools.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

D


What did he do better than Gallant other than have be better in 3v3 OT and the shootout?

Same lines, same ineffective pairs, same PP.

Turtled on 1 goal leads all season.

Showed zero fire at all which is what he was known for in the past.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Another coach that doesnt have the balls to split mika/kreider up.

C

 

[GoAwayPanarin]

D


What did he do better than Gallant other than have be better in 3v3 OT and the shootout?

Same lines, same ineffective pairs, same PP.

Turtled on 1 goal leads all season.

Give Lafreniere consistent top 6 minutes? That alone bumps them up into B territory.

Same PP that ranked 3rd in the league. I get that people wanted to make a change (which btw, wouldn't have fixed anything) when it went cold but guess what? It went cold for stretches of the RS too, as all PP's do.

There is no way they weren't going to try to run wit the horses that got there. I can't think off too many teams that would have done any differently either.

 

[Baby Punisher]

He gets an A. He did more with less than people realize.

 

[Megustaelhockey]

They did fine. We need to stop firing coaches. Time to fire players who don't perform.

 

[OthmannOut]

A-
I think he adequately prepared the team and didn't break up the core because he didn't want to lose the locker room. Some may find that to be egregious, but we won the presidents trophy and made it to game 6 of the ECF so you can't handwave away that achievement. He got about the best performance out of the team he could of gotten and like someone said, we didn't get blown out really in any of the playoff games. Florida was the better team and there was really nothing we could do. It is what it is.
My big gripes though are not switching up pp1 with Laf playing on fire or moving in Jones to get some minutes. Other than that, I think the coached well in the playoffs and deserves praise.
Ideally, Drury puts a dagger into the core and moves Trouba and makes some other moves to shake things up so Lav can continue working with what he has.

edit: oh, forgot to add not putting Kakko on the PK is dumb and hindering his confidence.

 

[Brother Mouzone]

A , at this point its clear its not the coach .

 

[hackeyman]

I would grade him an A maybe A+ for the regular season. In the playoffs he started to change things up as the playoffs progressed for what seemed like little or no reason. Was he getting pressure from Drury or did he just want to get the stars that were struggling out of their funk. Not sure but I think he should have kept doing what had been working all year and in the first 2 rounds . The ECF didn't seem like the best place to toy around with the lines. I'll give him a B for the playoffs but I think most of the reponsibilty lies with some of the star players.

 

[Killem Dafoe]

A

I didn't always agree with his decisions, but he's a good coach who got this team to the top of the league. In the playoffs, the team let everyone down. Our big guys just didn't step up and (mostly) everyone played like ass.

 

[zlev]

C, rode the team into the ground all season long and they were out of gas in the playoffs by the middle of round 2. didn't have the balls to bench or scratch two veteran defensemen who were godawful all season, or didn't realize how bad they actually were, not sure which is worse. could've given Jones and Edstrom a real look during the regular season to have them ready for the playoffs but didn't.

 

[irishlaxburger2]

Pros...
- Built a winning culture that got us into a position to go deep into the playoffs
- Matchup-wise, I thought he did a great job taking advantage of home ice last change whenever he could

Cons...
- Changing to man to man defense for games 3 and 4 of the Florida series was a putrid decision. Having our D finally activate down the wall in the offensive zone was way too little, too late in game 6.
- Shouldn't have waited until the final game to put Chytil at center. Everyone knew he would be ineffective on the wing

Overall, I'd say a B. The top bullet point is the vast majority of the job and he crushed it there. The other stuff was an inability to make good lemonade out of lemons in a series where we were outmatched.

Also, I misread the thread and assumed this was only the playoffs. Including the regular season, I give it an A-.

 

[huerter]

I give him a B.

You could see there was structure in our system. He mad some decent in-game adjustments.


Where he fell off was his stubbornness in personnel, especially defense. He kept the defense pairs rhe same for essentially the entire year, and even after trouba was injured and we played better, we went back to the same 6z. Even in the playoffs.

His lack of change on the PP personnel also annoyed me. Especially since it was clear we werent getting it done in the conference finals. Why not put Laf there?

What is the alignment with Laf?

 

[LeetchisGod]

I think the regular season and the playoffs should be separate. A for regular season. C at best for the playoffs.

 

[HockeyBasedNYC]

A-

It was a solid A+ for the season for a first year staff.

Mostly an A during the playoffs but the last 3-4 games of the conf final i thought they could have made some adjustments. Something was wrong with the Defensive structure. So it drops to an A-

That being said, the players need to execute, they didnt score enough goals and the PP went dead.

Overall, i must say that i trusted this staff and their decisions more so than any other staff in recent history.

 

[huerter]

What is the alignment with Laf?

Apparently this is the biggest brain busting question in history. Nobody ever has an answer. Cause that is the answer.

 

[80shockeywasbuns]

What is the alignment with Laf?

Apparently this is the biggest brain busting question in history. Nobody ever has an answer. Cause that is the answer.

I have seen it suggested 17253 times on this board for Laf to be put on the right side on his off wing with Panarin switching back to his natural side where he has played a million power play minutes at

 

[Ruggs225]

I have seen it suggested 17253 times on this board for Laf to be put on the right side on his off wing with Panarin switching back to his natural side where he has played a million power play minutes at

That would be the logical choice.

 

[Hunter Gathers]

A.

This is the best coaching staff we've had in over a decade. Not really a contest, either. Probably the best staff we've had since Tom Renney.

The thing that we need to do is upgrade the roster. I'm fine with the coaches and the staff. Some roster moves to fix the problems and let's go.

 

[80shockeywasbuns]

That would be the logical choice.

The alignment is less important than having two half wall players who are dynamic dual threats who can move with the puck and make reads. The guys handling the puck a lot need to be good. That’s step 1, then you can start worrying about everyone’s handedness and roles for the bumper/net front players.

 

[huerter]

I have seen it suggested 17253 times on this board for Laf to be put on the right side on his off wing with Panarin switching back to his natural side where he has played a million power play minutes at

So you’re running it through Laf? Cause if you’re running it through panarin then Kreider has to play on the other post where he’s not as comfortable and Trocheck becomes a pylon in the bumper. So you run it through Laf. Problem is I’ve done a libero on all his PP time and he’s a wiz on ending zone time with passes and shots into ankles or just having his plays broken up.