The New York Rangers fired Head Coach Peter Laviolette after a disastrous season and not making the playoffs. The Rangers were the best in the NHL last season winning the President’s trophy and making it to the Eastern Conference Finals. With high expectations this NHL season, the Rangers took a faceplant and became one of the worst teams in the NHL.
Associate Head Coach Phil Housley was also fired, while Assistant Coaches Dan Muse and Michael Peca will have the chance to interview for the next coaching staff, according to a source. Who will the team hire as its next head coach?
New York Rangers Fire Head Coach
Laviolette is a well-known coach in the NHL for 23 seasons with six different teams, including a 93-59-11 record with the Rangers. The fall of the Rangers was exacerbated by behind-the-scenes drama and locker-room angst that bubbled to the surface throughout 82 games. Laviolette wasn’t to blame for all of it. There were deeper cultural issues under President Chris Drury.
The Rangers suffered regression across the board, with each of their top-six scorers from the previous season – Artemi Panarin, Vincent Trocheck, Chris Kreider, Adam Fox, Mika Zibanejad, and Alexis Lafrenière − finishing well below their 2023-24 point totals.
But above all, the structure, commitment, and preparation throughout the season vanished. Practices lacked the intensity of the previous year, and the team often came out flat on game days. The New York Rangers doomed their season with a disastrous 4-15 run from mid-November through December. They then went 6-10-3 in 19 games leading up to Saturday’s official elimination in Carolina.
Final Thoughts
Meanwhile, Drury will begin his quest to find a new head coach for the third time in four years. He will try to convince two-time Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins Coach Mike Sullivan to join the Rangers. If that fails, he will have eyes on John Tortorella, who was dismissed from his coaching duties earlier in the season by the Philadelphia Flyers.
This is the second consecutive New York Rangers coach to be fired after just two campaigns, with Laviolette matching the timeline of his predecessor Gerard Gallant. Before Gallant, David Quinn (2018-2021) was the last Rangers coach to last longer than two seasons behind the Rangers bench.
