1. This was always one of my worries with hiring Laviolette. He struggled to get an entrenched veteran core in Washington to buy into his system and was met with similar apathy. It was a quick band-aid solution to try to paper over Gallant, and it just wasn't the right move for the team at this time.
Actually it was the exact best thing that they could do to give them a chance to go as far as possible. It's hard to argue the latter.
The young players that have made strides on the roster in the 100 games that Laviolette has coached:
Lafreniere
Chytil
Kakko
Cuylle
Schneider
Jones
Edstrom
Does Gallant even give them a chance? Probably not. On top of that, you got the best year of Trocheck as an NHLer, Panarin dropped 120 points, and you made the conference finals and lost to the best team in the NHL.
Young players need structure to develop appropriately. Gallant and Quinn offered none of that, and AV before that was very similar. Torts was the last coach that went on about structure. The development track post Torts was not good. There are very few that did develop after the fact. Zibanejad, Fox, Lindgren, and Miller are the ones that stand out. Strome didn't develop, just saved his career. Tons of busts though, and high draft selections on top of that.
The vets bought into it last season, so has the message worn thin on the group or do these veteran players tune out a coach too quickly? They played through the Quinn years because it was a retool and the veterans ran the show. Gallant comes in to try and "toughen" the team up, and it "works" for a year, but have no tactics behind their play.
Laviolette has his system and asks you to play a part in it. If a veteran player cannot last more than 120 total games in that system, it's the player, not the coach.