Player Discussion Peter Laviolette
- Thread starter Psycho for Perreault
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I think Lavi's issue isn't necessarily the reliance on vets. Every coach from 1920 until the heat death of the universe has relied and will rely on vets. The issue is defaulting to past placement as if it's still gospel. Using Lindgren, Mika, and Kreider as examples, they all were once 1st liners or used as a top pair D. Despite clear declines in on-ice performance, there was next to no lineup adjustment.
Lindgren might have been serviceable as a 2nd or 3rd pair guy, but since he was at one point a decent partner for Fox on the 1st pair, that was the only place Lavi ever used him. There was seemingly no nuance to the evaluation. Either 1st pair playing with Fox or gone from the org. The full-stop conclusion was that Lindgren could no longer be in the org (which, no real argument against that); not that maybe he could have still been useful in a lesser role - Nearly the same with Mika & Kreider.
Mika had ~2 seasons of detached garbage play as 1C and it took halfway through this season to do anything differently with him which has worked out so far - Reduce his role/responsibility and let him get back to his game.
Kreider can't skate and is still getting top 6 ES+PP1 time when he's in the lineup. His ES ice time is just starting to look more like a 2nd liner since about the end of January.
I have an extremely hard time buying into the idea that a new coach will suddenly do things differently here unless it's someone with a very strong personality.
Lindgren might have been serviceable as a 2nd or 3rd pair guy, but since he was at one point a decent partner for Fox on the 1st pair, that was the only place Lavi ever used him. There was seemingly no nuance to the evaluation. Either 1st pair playing with Fox or gone from the org. The full-stop conclusion was that Lindgren could no longer be in the org (which, no real argument against that); not that maybe he could have still been useful in a lesser role - Nearly the same with Mika & Kreider.
Mika had ~2 seasons of detached garbage play as 1C and it took halfway through this season to do anything differently with him which has worked out so far - Reduce his role/responsibility and let him get back to his game.
Kreider can't skate and is still getting top 6 ES+PP1 time when he's in the lineup. His ES ice time is just starting to look more like a 2nd liner since about the end of January.
I have an extremely hard time buying into the idea that a new coach will suddenly do things differently here unless it's someone with a very strong personality.
SA16
Sixstring
This Kreider stuff is not true though.
By month here is his 5v5 ice time among forwards with 50+ mins
October: 9/12
November: 8/13
December: 10/13
January: 8/14
February: 10/12
March: N/A
He hasn't been better than 8th in 5v5 TOI in a month all year. In terms of PP1 time...he's the best net front guy on the team so why wouldn't he? He's tied for the team lead in 5v4 goals (technically 1st since he's played 12 less games and 43 less minutes than Panarin).
For the year his 5v5 ice time is 11:12 which is closer to Jimmy Vesey than it is to any of Panarin/Lafreniere/Trocheck/Chytil/Cuylle/Smith/Zibanejad
Ryan Lindgren hadn’t gotten first pair usage since Quinn was here.
Lavi tried to shelter him as much as possible this year. Peep his QoC numbers this year, they’re basically average.
Miller,Fox and Trouba/Borgen have all eaten more minutes than Lindgren 5v5 since Gallant became a thing.
They tried the lower pair thing with him last year and it always lasted a game or 2 before reverting back to what existed before it because he got caved even harder. The time to move on from him was then.
I also think Lavi is a sucker for the grit intangibles. Those things make a coach do stupid shit but he sort of knew what he was dealing with here. He thought the best course of action was to let our Best D try to carry him as much as he could. It’s dumb but the truth is that they didn’t have to keep him.
I don’t think you need a strong personality. You just need someone who is willing to apply accountability across the board and doesn’t have an allegiance to the players on the roster.
Jon Cooper is far from a strong personality and he’s had no issues benching his stars when he has needed to.
Lavi tried to shelter him as much as possible this year. Peep his QoC numbers this year, they’re basically average.
Miller,Fox and Trouba/Borgen have all eaten more minutes than Lindgren 5v5 since Gallant became a thing.
They tried the lower pair thing with him last year and it always lasted a game or 2 before reverting back to what existed before it because he got caved even harder. The time to move on from him was then.
I also think Lavi is a sucker for the grit intangibles. Those things make a coach do stupid shit but he sort of knew what he was dealing with here. He thought the best course of action was to let our Best D try to carry him as much as he could. It’s dumb but the truth is that they didn’t have to keep him.
I don’t think you need a strong personality. You just need someone who is willing to apply accountability across the board and doesn’t have an allegiance to the players on the roster.
Jon Cooper is far from a strong personality and he’s had no issues benching his stars when he has needed to.
I was looking at total ice time, not ES so that was my mistake.
Those guys did/do have more ES minutes than Lindgren but Lindgren-Fox has quite literally always been the 1st pair unless one was hurt since 2019. From 2020-2021 through today, Fox has played more minutes by himself (between the PP and OT I guess) than he has with any defenseman not named Ryan Lindgren.
It's difficult to shelter Lindgren across ~6 years while regularly playing him with the team's 1D. I'd imagine that Lindgren's ES ice time was managed during some games because from 2019-2025, he blows everyone else on NYR out of the water for total PK time. Any of the experiments like you mentioned only lasted for a few games at most and it was to shoehorn Lindgren back with Fox. Maybe it was because they did recognize he was getting smoked no matter where he was and shoving him next to Fox made him the least bad.
I would argue it takes a strong personality to follow through on those "threats" of benchings for bad play with star players. Especially when 9.9 times out of 10, any given star player isn't benched for stretches of bad play. They're just allowed to "do their thing" and play through it.
I think it's pretty clear at this point that the defense is so bad because 1) the forwards don't know how to play it while no one bothers teaching them and 2) At age 61, Phil Housley would be a bigger asset on the ice than he is behind the bench.
Issue 1 stems back to the AV/Michael Grabner era when the organization went all in on fly-the-zone offense with stretch passes out the ass.
Issue 2 is on this staff. When practically every defender regresses under you, it's more than likely a you problem.
Issue 1 stems back to the AV/Michael Grabner era when the organization went all in on fly-the-zone offense with stretch passes out the ass.
Issue 2 is on this staff. When practically every defender regresses under you, it's more than likely a you problem.
But they haven't been the first pair. It's been Miller-Trouba before Trouba was traded. Thats been a big part of our issue during this current "window" (the playoff years, the Quinn years were different.)
Trouba and Lindgren logged virtually identical time on the PK between 21-22 to last year (Lindgren averaged more by 3 seconds per game.) Trouba ate more minutes 5v5 than Lindgren did during the same time frame (Gallant year 1 to last year, averaging more than a minute a game.)
The sheltering really became more of a thing this year. He was allowed to suck against better competition for most of last season but Lavi definitely tried to limit how he was used this year and really just deployed him with the top 6 during his last month and a half in NY.
Thats one of the things that makes Lavi annoying AF. He clearly knew the player was an issue and instead of just pushing him down in the lineup he tried to make it work with him higher in the lineup. This is before getting to the fact that this team's fortunes flipped exactly when Lindgren was re-inserted into the top 4.
Lavi pushed the right buttons for the most part last year (it wasn't perfect.) I feel like this season he's gone out of his way to nuke the few things that have worked.
It's not his fault that Lindgren was here, but he did choose to use him the way that he did. Even if you think other coaches are going to lean vet (and they may) I don't think all of them would have gone about this season in the way that Laviolette has. It's been a clown show beyond RL.
I warned everyone about Phil Housley two years ago. He was a bust as the Coyotes defensive coach. Same story in New York. I don’t know if Laviolette will be retained but I do know that Housley needs to be the first guy out the door.
Housley’s wife wants to run for the Senate next year in Minnesota. He needs to go home and help her campaign.
Housley’s wife wants to run for the Senate next year in Minnesota. He needs to go home and help her campaign.
