The point of all of this though is that Carter and other veteran players may not be so keen to join Laviolette. He does not leave with the most positive reviews and his coaching style wears players down. That being said, he's probably a good fit for a skilled Washington team trying to put together another 3-4 years of contending before this current group's window closes.

The Caps usually hire someone with a reputation for being tough on hockey players. I'm not sure I get the appeal. I kinda think they have guys who will try hard even if someone tells them they're doing a good job, once in a while.

Laviolette is probably in the Mike Keenan and John Tortorella class of tough on players type of coach.

Barry Trotz is tough but fair. That's why he has coached in cities for longer than 3 to 4 years. The Capitals really hurt themselves losing Trotz.

Siegs logs a ton of minutes on the PK (11th in the NHL in SH TOI this year), which is impressive considering how young he is, and has the prototypical size for a stay-at-home defenseman though he doesn't use it as much as I'd like. He's not as good at even strength as Jensen IMO, but he'll definitely be cheaper. Realistic projection for him is a 2nd pairing defensive-defenseman, like Brendan Dillon with less of a physical game. Also, he's Swiss, so it'd be pretty cool if he got to play on a team with Josi and Weber. I think Siegs and Josi will probably be the top pairing for the Swiss team at some point in the future.