Predators Picked the Wrong Time to Fire Peter Laviolette Midseason

The decision itself maybe wasn’t the wrong one, but the Nashville Predators firing Peter Laviolette when they did was horrible timing.

Time will tell if the decision by the Nashville Predators to fire Peter Laviolette in early January was the right decision. There’s no way to definitively know that right now.

You can have your sweeping statements that say “yes it was the absolutely the right decision”, but you definitely can’t have that same confidence when it comes to the timing of when they did it.

Judging by how inconsistent and frantic the team’s play remains well after Laviolette has been gone tells me it was bad timing in respects to not only winning a playoff series, but even being competitive if they do sneak in.

After watching the last two debacles, and them nearly losing to Calgary before that, this team is suddenly in another tailspin at the worst possible time.

Midseason firings are tricky

It’s really hard on a team’s psyche and chemistry to go through a coaching change and all of the systematic changes that go along with it when it happens right in the middle of a season.

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Laviolette was fired after the January 5th loss to the Anaheim Ducks, sending the Predators to a record of 19-15-7 at the time. They were at a very low point, and had just taken the embarrassing collapse in the Winter Classic to the Dallas Stars.

With that said, the Predators were hanging around in the playoff race, like they still are now, and obviously had plenty of time to turn it around under Laviolette.

You can have a solid argument that things were going to keep getting worse before they got better under Laviolette. But you don’t really know that for sure.

Hynes has actually done a pretty respectable job at keeping this team afloat. It’s a very tall order for him right now as he tries to pull more effort and energy out of this talented team that isn’t living up to it consistently.

My argument has always been that if you were going to fire Laviolette, you either had to do it before the season started, or ride it until the end of the season with him and see what happens.

The Predators were never so far out of it that they had no chance of making the playoffs. They’ve flirted around with that playoff bubble since November, and they’re still there as we speak.

The team is still showing the troubling signs it was showing under Laviolette now under Hynes. It’s a deeply-rooted problem that wasn’t just tied to Laviolette.

You can cherry pick stats that illustrate that the Predators are getting better under Hynes, and they are in certain areas.

But the overall problem of the team hasn’t changed much. They don’t show up for large portions of games, don’t play much defense and have questionable roster decisions that have been made.

What should’ve been done

There’s two ways they could’ve gone that would make more sense than what they’re in now.

First off, the Predators would’ve been in all of their rights to fire Laviolette before the season started. They were coming off a demoralizing and shocking first-round exit in the playoffs, and fell short the season before in the second round.

That was two seasons in a row where the team came up very short of expectations. I wrote about how Laviolette’s seat was hotter than it had ever been in Nashville over the offseason.

If you were really losing faith in Laviolette, why give him another season only to fire him when the team is on the playoff bubble with a whole other half of the season remaining?

Again, the timing made no sense to me when it happened nearly two months ago, and it still doesn’t make sense to me.

You would’ve had me on board if they took the leap and did it before the season started. I would’ve been shocked to see it, but on board to move forward with someone new and with a full season to implement a new coach’s system and philosophies.

Now the team is in disarray, and it’s not Hynes’ fault. He’s making the most out of the situation, and I’m withholding judgement on his job performance until next season.

However, this just looks like too tall of a hill to climb for the Predators. They can’t get it together for more than two or three games in a row.

Maybe the Predators hit another three or four-game hot streak and creep into the playoffs. They could’ve done that under Laviolette as well.

They could’ve fired Laviolette after the season, and still have similar results to what they’re getting now in terms of where they’re at in the standings.

Then they could’ve gone into the offseason with a fresh outlook and have a well thought-out coaching search. Now they’re moving forward with Hynes, and still look like the wildly inconsistent team that is destined for a first-round playoff exit, if they’re lucky.

More. Updated Playoff Predictions and Wildcard Race Finishes. light

Let’s hope that they did their due diligence in hiring Hynes, because at face value the decision still looks rushed to me when it could’ve been much more methodical before or after the season began.

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