Peter Laviolette and Rod Brind’Amour will take their respective places behind the Rangers and Hurricanes benches for Game 1 of the second round of the 2024 playoffs on Sunday, 17 years, 10 months and 16 days removed from winning a Stanley Cup together as coach and captain in Raleigh, N.C.
So much has happened since the two reached hockey’s Mount Everest together.
Brind’Amour hung up the skates in 2010 and picked up a whistle as a Canes assistant the following year before he was given the reins in 2018.
Laviolette went on to coach four more teams, leading two of them to the final.
What hasn’t happened? Neither have won another Stanley Cup.
And so the former pillars of the Hurricanes’ lone championship now find themselves as adversaries on opposing benches, looking to prevent one another from achieving the ultimate goal they once set out to accomplish together and ultimately did.
“I think he decided [to name me captain], and it wasn’t a slam dunk,” Brind’Amour cracked to The Post on the outskirts of the NHL draft floor in Nashville this past offseason, just over two weeks after Laviolette was hired to take over behind the Rangers bench.
“I should give him grief about that. I remember, he didn’t know our team very well because he had just gotten there for like that little stretch. Then we had the year off [for the 2004 lockout]. You’d have to ask him, but I know, he might say, ‘Oh it was—,’ he wasn’t sure.”
Laviolette and Brind’Amour are just the second pair of head coaches in NHL history to square off in a playoff series after having previously won a Cup together as a captain-coach duo, joining Dick Irvin and Hap Day, who lifted Lord Stanley’s Cup together with the Maple Leafs before meeting in three different playoff series as contending coaches.
It has been 77 years since the last time this happened, with Irvin and Day facing off in the 1947 Stanley Cup Final between Montreal and Toronto.
The immense mutual respect between Laviolette and Brind’Amour has been evident as they both prepare for the upcoming series, but that’s the effect a bond sealed with a sought-after victory can have.
“He’s clearly done a good job,” Laviolette said of Brind’Amour earlier this week. “He’s had his team moving in the right direction year after year. One of the top teams in the league, chasing what the remaining eight teams will be chasing. There’s no question about that. Not being on the inside and actually getting to work with them, you can just tell that his teams play the right way. They play hard.”
Both coaches are known to be detail-oriented, highly motivating and focused on team camaraderie.
The latter is something Brind’Amour said he picked up from Laviolette, who always allowed families around the rink and promoted a family-like environment during his time in Carolina.
It’s a trait Laviolette has seemingly brought everywhere he’s gone in his NHL coaching career, one that hasn’t faded away despite the distance and time that may pass since he’s been with a team.
When Brind’Amour’s father passed away this past June, Laviolette reached out right away.
The 53-year-old Brind’Amour considers Laviolette to be the first coach he ever had to go the extra mile. One could say that the experiences Brind’Amour had playing for Laviolette partially shaped him into the coach he is today.
“I think there was a lot of belief,” Brind’Amour said of how that Stanley Cup-winning Hurricanes team took shape under Laviolette. “He instills a lot of belief in the players and their ability as a group. That’s why I think he has success, really, everywhere he’s gone. Initially, he gets a real good push, teams do really well, because it’s refreshing. It’s nothing you haven’t really heard before, but he has a good way of bringing the group together.”
The Rangers were one of the most well-coached teams in the NHL this season, winning the Presidents’ Trophy and cruising through the first round, in Laviolette’s first year.
The Hurricanes, on the other hand, have qualified for the postseason in all six seasons under Brind’Amour’s leadership.
From colleagues to competitors, let the coaching battle begin.