USA Hockey has named two-time Olympic player and veteran NHL and international coach Peter Laviolette as the men’s team coach in the 2020 world championships.
Laviolette became available when the Nashville Predators fired him in January. During his 5 1/2-year tenure, the Predators reached the 2017 Stanley Cup finals and won the 2017-18 Presidents’ Trophy for the NHL’s best regular-season record.
The Predators were the fourth NHL team Laviolette has coached, starting with the New York Islanders when he was only 37 years old. He also coached the Carolina Hurricanes, with whom he won the 2006 Stanley Cup, and the Philadelphia Flyers, which made the 2010 Stanley Cup finals.
When he hasn’t been coaching in the NHL, he has been coaching with USA Hockey. In 2006, he juggled both roles, serving as head coach of the U.S. team in the Olympics while still coaching the Hurricanes. He also has coached the U.S. in the 2004, 2005 and 2014 world championships, and he was the team’s assistant coach in the 2014 Olympics.
He spent most of his playing career in the minor leagues aside from a 12-game run with the New York Rangers in 1988-98. He played in the 1988 and 1994 Olympics, the latter as team captain.
World championship teams are composed of players whose teams have been eliminated from Stanley Cup contention. The U.S. team has only won once, in 1933. The team hasn’t taken a silver medal since 1950, but it won bronze in 2013, 2015 and 2018. Laviolette led the team to bronze in 2004.
The championships will be May 8-24 in multiple cities in Switzerland.
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