Better luck next year: Peter Laviolette is fine, but he's not the answer to the Kings problems

The hiring of Peter Laviolette is a perfect representation of what the Los Angeles Kings are right now: Not bad. But not really exciting.

Welcome back to Better Luck Next Year, a series that will focus on each team as they get eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. What went wrong, why it went wrong, what (if anything) went right, and what is next. We continue today with the Los Angeles Kings.

The NHL’s head-coaching recycling program, as well as the Los Angeles Kings head-coaching carousel, continued to roll on this week when they hired Peter Laviolette to replace D.J. Smith behind the bench.

Smith took over on an interim basis late in the season when the Kings fired Jim Hiller, less than two years after he was hired to replaced Todd McLellan.

That means when Laviolette coaches his first game next season that will be four different head coaches since the start of the 2023-24 season.

The results have not really changed through any of it, and it’s hard to imagine them changing much with Laviolette.

That’s not necessarily a knock on Laviolette. He’s a fine coach. He’s had a lot of success in the NHL, winning a Stanley Cup with Carolina and taking two other teams (the Philadelphia Flyers and Nashville Predators) to the Stanley Cup Final. He’s climbed the league’s all-time wins leaderboard and has made his fair share of playoff appearances with his six previous teams (yes, the Kings will be his seventh-different head-coaching job. That is 22 percent of the league).

As far as the NHL’s recycling bin goes, you could certainly do worse. It’s not like you’re doing something idiotic and shameful like, say, trying to hire Mike Babcock in 2026.

It’s just not exciting.

It doesn’t move the needle.

It doesn’t generate a buzz.

It’s like the Pittsburgh Steelers hiring Mike McCarthy.

Yeah, it’s a big name that people know and you’ll probably be somewhat competitive, but you’re not really going anywhere.

Which pretty much describes the current state of the Kings beyond the head coach.

The bigger problem for the Kings is the organization simply has no juice of any kind at the moment. They came out of their rebuild sooner than anticipated, and they have made the playoffs five years in a row. That’s something. But they have yet to advance beyond the first round in that time, and they have run into the same problems that other rebuilding teams have experienced — not all of their best young prospects or players panned out as they hoped.

Some did. But not enough, and not enough of them.

Not only is the NHL team lacking in impact players as a result, their prospect pool is alarmingly thin and lacking in high-ceiling players.

All of that has lowered the ceiling for what the team can do and how far it can go.

When it comes to the playoff losses, they had four in a row to the Edmonton Oilers between 2022 and 2025. They followed it up this year by barely sneaking into the playoffs and getting swept in four games by the Colorado Avalanche, representing a pretty big step backwards for the organization in its first year under the leadership of general manager Ken Holland.

You can also put together a pretty compelling argument that they were one of the worst playoff teams of the salary cap era.

• They won just 35 games overall.

• Their 22 regulation wins were tied for the second-fewest in the entire NHL, ahead of only the Vancouver Canucks and tied with the Chicago Blackhawks.

• Their minus-22 goal differential was the worst among this year’s playoff teams and one of the worst marks of any playoff team in the salary cap era.

Making matters worse, Anze Kopitar is retiring, their most dynamic offensive player (Artemi Panarin) is going to be 35 years old when this season begins, and the roster is still loaded with questions when it comes to its overall depth.

It’s as middle-of-the-road as a team can be.

It’s going to take some creativity to get out of that.

But is that something the current management team has? The early indications are not promising.

Let’s get a little more into that, as well as an additional recap to the 2025-26 season.

What went right this season