Quoting: aadoyle
With the caps yes but they werent the right team for him past their prime and needed to go in a new direction. They starting it but still need to continue and get out from the old guys. As lets be real if not for the injuries he would have got them to the playoffs. As to how far they would have went no idea.
But besides that Laviolette has the coaching pedigree was the man who taught Brid'Amour what coaching was, and won a cup and took NSH to the finals
I mean, if you look at Laviolette's years in DC, even from the very beginning, what makes him an enticing coach? He had no idea what to do with even an iota of youth if their name wasn't Martin Fehervary, including pissing off players in the process by not playing guys like Alexeyev, so I can only imagine the wails from Toronto faithful when he forcefeeds the fans 18 minutes of Simmonds a night like he did with Craig Smith, Matt Irwin, and the list goes on. His Caps' best run was a 6 game loss to Florida in which he was tactically spanked by Andrew Brunette (who was then tactically spanked by Cooper in the next round), couldn't adjust to Florida's game, started Vanecek even though Samsonov was the obvious pick, and misused talent in those 6 games by cutting minutes from Mantha and Oshie despite them playing quite well. Hell, in the series against Boston he started Craig Anderson even though Samsonov was once again the better pick.
He doesn't have any idea what to do with talent whatsoever. His powerplays, dating back to his time in Nashville, are horrendously bad and while that could somewhat be blamed on Forsythe in DC when you look back at his final years in Nashville it starts to become a trend. He has no idea how to handle goalies, starting one randomly then benching them randomly during a run of form (see Samsonov early last season, force-feeding Fucale games then getting him sent down the moment he falters, etc). His defensive structure was god awful despite the caps having solid defensemen, as shown by Orlov and Schultz thriving outside of Washington and random blowout games the Caps should have won (see home vs Edmonton last year, Samsonov gets shelled in period one due to mind numbing defense, Copley comes in but gap is too far). I'd say that his defensive structure is no better exposed than in seeing that Vanacek, Samsonov,
AND Copley all had career years on teams not named the Capitals.
He might have been a good coach back in the day, but the game has very clearly passed him by. He can't get along with players (Orlov, Vrana, Mantha, etc), he lacks any defensive structure, can't get a power play going, can't deal with youth, and seemingly everyone that left Washington in the last 2 years returned to form, save for Marcus Johansson who stayed about the same. If MLSE was impatient with Dubas, then I don't think Lavi would even last a season there. He's got the profile of a short term success coach like Deboer, Gallant, and Tortorella, but without the success part.