The Kings have agreed in principle to hire Peter Laviolette as their fourth head coach in just over two years, the Southern California News Group has confirmed.
Laviolette, 61, will take the reins from interim coach D.J. Smith. In March, Smith relieved Jim Hiller, who had taken over for Todd McLellan in February of 2024. TSN and The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun reported that his pact with the Kings will span three seasons.
There have now been six coaches in the nine-campaign tenure of Kings team president Luc Robitaille. Laviolette is the only one among them who has brought a Stanley Cup ring as a head coach with him to Southern California.
Laviolette stewarded the Carolina Hurricanes to the Cup in 2006, a seven-game triumph over a Cinderella Edmonton Oilers squad. He took the Philadelphia Flyers on an improbable run of their own in 2010, his first year as head coach, falling to the dynasty-bound Chicago Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup Final. His Nashville Predators would end that dynasty with a 2017 first-round upset that propelled the Preds to a loss against the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Final.
In all, Laviolette has coached six franchises previously and taken each one to the playoffs at least once in his 23 seasons as an NHL head coach. He’s also been either the head coach or an assistant coach for Team USA at every established senior international competition: The Olympics, World Championships and World Cup of Hockey.
Most recently, he coached the New York Rangers for two campaigns. In his first one with the Blueshirts, they won the Presidents’ Trophy and reached the conference finals. Kings winger Artemi Panarin, acquired from the Rangers in February, now reunites with the bench boss that oversaw his most prolific output ever, 120 points, that same season.
Yet after that banner year, the Rangers descended into toxicity and despair, with wholesale roster changes that included captain Jacob Trouba, playoff hero Chris Kreider and, ultimately, Panarin being traded away for pennies on the dollar. In the midst of all that, Laviolette was also let go.
That 2023-24 season was the only one of the past seven for Laviolette –– split between the Predators, Rangers and Washington Capitals –– in which his team made it out of the first round.
That sounded familiar to the Kings, who have lost in Round 1 in five straight postseasons and haven’t advanced in the playoffs since their 2014 Stanley Cup triumph. Only the Detroit Red Wings, Kings GM Ken Holland’s former club, ride a longer active playoff series victory drought.