Episode 165: Peter Plan

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The Bannermen: LA Kings Podcast 52 min 8 chapters transcribed 1 month ago

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Why did the Kings hire Peter Laviolette as their 32nd head coach?

Caro 0:18

Kings fans, are you ready to see that Stanley Cup banner raised again? You are now listening to the Bannerman, an LA Kings podcast. All right, it's Wednesday night. I don't know if this is an emergency podcast yet, because usually emergency podcasts are instant reactions to something. And we are we have taken a few days to digest the hiring of Peter Laviolet, the thirty second Coach in King's history in fifty-eight years. That's uh that's a lot.

Varty 0:56

Wow.

Caro 0:56

That is a lot of coaches. I will tell you, my friend. Uh but here he is. Uh Earlier last month I would say I kinda did a f just having fun with it, did a King's power rankings of potential coaches and I put Laviolette fourth on that list? I had Cassidy one, Woodcroft two, Manny Melhultra three. Laviolet four. Listen, two of those three weren't even an option, right?

Varty 1:25

Correct. Correct. And it sounds like it came down to the other two, which were Woodcroft and Laviolette.

Caro 1:31

Right, right. So the rankings hold. They hold.

Varty 1:35

Solid, as always.

Caro 1:38

Uh Your initial thoughts, Vardian, we'll kinda jump into the presser and Everything we've kind of gathered in the last few days.

Varty 1:48

Yeah. Uh I'm good with it. I'm I I'm seeing a lot of commentary online uh A lot of people throwing out the oh my god, r another recycled old boys club coach. This is his seventh team. You know, he gets fired from everywhere he goes. He didn't even have a job last year because no one wanted him. I've seen all of that. I've also seen plenty of people who are excited for the idea that this is going to be a uh prioritizing offense uh scheme in his coaching, which has been a trend for him. This is also a guy who has taken three different teams to the Stanley Cup final. Um he's won a cup, granted it was a long time ago, but he's also I think seventh uh in terms of uh games one and the AHL coaching tree, if I'm quoting that correctly.

Varty 2:47

And as far as coaches go, he's still on the younger end. I think he's only like late fifties, early sixties. I have to double check that. But it's not like he's, you know, seventy year old Ken Holland here on his last legs. So Um I I'm I'm good with it. I I completely understand if it came down to Woodcroft and La Violette for the makeup of this team, more veteran loaded, obviously. Um and you know, even Brant Clark and Quentin Biofield at this point, while they're not veterans, they're not rookies either. They're not, you know, guys who are chomping at the bit to just get their fifteen minutes of ice time. Like these are gonna be guys that are relied on to play north of twenty minutes if you're byfield north of twenty minutes if you're Clark too, probably.

Varty 3:35

Um So I think for the veteran makeup of this team, plus having a few guys that have played with him before It makes a ton of sense to me. why this was the hiring. And the interesting thing that I found was, you know, we had talked about how if ultimately they went with w with Woodcroft, we would there would be a part of us that would say, like, oh man, again, Holland kinda going back to the Edmonton well and uh it's just this doesn't feel right. I I appreciated that he came out straight like right in the beginning and Holland was like, Yeah, me and this guy really didn't have much of a relationship at all. I've never worked with him, he's never coached any of my teams. Um, but I talked to a lot of people.

Varty 4:19

He's been around long enough. We've, you know, run in similar circles. And so I appreciated that Mm. There was that element of it too, a true new voice here, not just for the team, but for Holland as well. So that's that's kinda I I would say if you want to give m like a four out of five stars rating, I think that's that's about where I would say here in terms of a coaching choice to me.

Caro 4:44

Yeah, I I wanna touch on a couple of things you said. Number one, you started off with a lot of people saying this is a recycled coach. The word I saw a lot was an uninspiring higher. And I and I ask the people who say that without any snark. What higher would inspire you? Right. I'm truly asking that question. And don't say David Carl, because no one has been able to pry that man away from Denver.