Hurricanes fire Green; Hire Laviolette

Hurricanes part of coaching carousel; make mid season coaching change.

It has been a crazy week inside the DCHL when it comes to coaching changes. It all started back in early December when the Arizona Coyotes fired long time coach Peter Laviolette and replaced him with Dave Tippett.  

Then let's fast forward to Wednesday January 4 when the New Jersey Devils threw the entire league for a loop by firing Jon Cooper and hiring Lindy Ruff. Shortly after there were a barrage of coach firings, including Andrew Burnette (PHI), Dominic Ducharme (MTL), and Travis Green (CAR). 

Travis Green was in his third season with the Hurricanes and was 113-69-19 as the head coach and was 12-13 in the postseason.

Rumors are it was between the Hurricanes and Flyers to get the services of Jon Cooper, but the Flyers ultimately won the bidding war. Montreal hired Dave Hakstol, and the Hurricanes hired Peter Laviolette.

Peter Laviolette has been the head coach of the Arizona Coyotes since the 2016-2017 season with a record of 264-199-53, but only made the postseason twice in six seasons, and was 7-9 in those games.

There's no doubt Laviolette is an upgrade over Travis Green, but Laviolette has struggled to find success in the DCHL. But the question is will he be able to take this Hurricanes roster in a deep playoff run? Some could argue this Hurricanes team is the best team he has ever coached.

Peter Laviolette becomes the Hurricanes' 4th coach in 7 years, and is probably the most accomplished coach since Ken Hitchcock in 2016-2017.

GM Mike Giletto spoke about the decision to make a coaching change mid season while in a playoff spot, "We've been thinking about making a change for quite some time now. At one point we lost 11 of 13 and that's when we knew this would became a possibility. We then saw a shift around the rest of league with coaches and saw it as a good opportunity to make a change. It's early enough in the season that we're hoping we can right the ship a little bit and be a better hockey team."

Lavy makes his debut behind the bench Saturday against the Columbus Blue Jackets.