Former New York Rangers forward Sean Avery has publicly called for the team to fire head coach Peter Laviolette due to the team’s underwhelming performance this season.
The Rangers have dropped 13 of their last 17 games, bringing their record to 16-17-1, and they now sit near the bottom of the Metropolitan Division, trailing by five points behind the team holding the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.
“I’d fire him today,” Avery said during a Monday appearance on the “Spittin’ Chiclets” podcast.
“In a big market like that, coming off an Eastern Conference Finals appearance last year, they were so close,” he added. “Unfortunately, that’s how it goes. The coach is the first to go.”
Avery, who played 580 NHL games and accumulated 247 points over his career with Detroit, Los Angeles, Dallas, and the Rangers, acknowledged that firing the coach is often a common first step after a team’s struggles, but expressed concern over what would follow.
“Fire the coach, then what do you do next?” Avery said. “The whole system is (expletive) broken.”
Laviolette, in his second year of a three-year contract, guided the Rangers to the Presidents’ Trophy and an Eastern Conference Finals appearance last season. However, this year has seen the team lose its way, with rising tensions in the locker room, key players being traded, and others, like Chris Kreider and Jimmy Vesey, being put on the trade block.
The Rangers will return to action after the holiday break with a Saturday road game against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
