OverDrive - Laviolette on his head coaching interview process, the Maple Leafs’ roster and the Hurricanes seeking a bounce back

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

Former NHL Head Coach Peter Laviolette joined OverDrive to discuss the role superstar players play on a team, John Tortorella’s success as Golden Knights head coach, the Hurricanes needing a bounce back in game 2, his interview process and his role for a roster, the Maple Leafs’ direction and more!

Catch everything soccer with Bell's game time bundle. Get 5 TV with TSN plus 5150 internet, all for $99 a month. Price guaranteed for two years with a two-year internet and TV term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.com for more details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. You were a game breaker when you were playing for our next guest. Joining us now on the Maple Toto hotline is Peter Lavie-Lat. Can you confirm that Jeff O'Neill was a game breaker when he played for you?

Lavie, don't answer it. I kept him right in the same spot. I thought, I held him in the same regard as Brunson talking about him. There you go. That's the answer I expected. Hey, he was awesome in that game last night. Like, I was in New York for a few years and to get to watch him because, I don't know, like right now I'm following Tampa Bay a lot.

They're just, you know, they were just north of me and I know Coupe or whatever, but you always follow the local teams wherever you move. And so I ended up just watching a lot of the Knicks games. And he's constantly doing what he did last night, just making shots and making plays. that he shouldn't make. Well, not shouldn't make, but they're like high-end. They're like ridiculous plays. They completely turn the game around.

Lavie, Brunson's a game breaker. We just talked about them. And in hockey, you need your game breakers. And I know we had conversations, but what's your general message, like, in the playoffs to your go-to guy? Does anything even have to be said? Like, they know they have to contribute. And there's guys in Carolina that need to step up right now.

Do you even talk to those guys? Because you can't really risk breaking them up because the other lines are playing so well. It's a unique situation there. You need your game breakers in these situations. You do. Oh, I think you got to keep talking to them. You got to keep at this point, right, you need them. This isn't about ice time.

This isn't about message sending. There's none of that going on. So I think you need to talk to these guys, show them the video, keep putting them in opportunities where maybe they can be successful to try and find it. But, and I don't think much change is, you know, not just talking about that line, but just in general, in the playoffs, I think that your game break, your type players, they know who they are. They know what their job is. They know what their responsibility is. You know, anything you can do to encourage their great play, I think that's always a positive thing. But it's not like special messages, like, okay, it's this time of the year, it's playoffs, and we got to get going now.

They know that. And so they have the ability to completely change the direction of a game. And, you know, you start in game one. I thought Carolina fans are unbelievable. And to watch that building just completely getting gulped with the red and the energy and the juice that was in the building, you would have thought that the building moved two feet to the right and that it was going to be 10-0. And then all of a sudden it just kind of turned and guys started making plays. and like you said, game breakers, and all of a sudden the game's completely in a different direction and quickly.

But I think you just let them go, oh, if they've been doing it their whole life, they're probably going to do it in the biggest stage as well. So, Lavi, what was your biggest takeaway from game one on both sides, really? Is it, you know, they were kind of wading their way into the series, and there were some mistakes. And if you do have that, I mean, what type of adjustments do you look at heading into game two? So you think about the Montreal series against Carolina, where Montreal came out and they snuck game one out of there, you know what I mean?

And so there's time now for Roddy and his staff to get back in there and to show what they've been doing the entire year. I thought it just got a little bit loose defensively, which is not necessarily the characteristic of Carolina. Like they're usually pretty good at a consistent game. And so for me, it's a little bit of a wake-up call. You get that momentum. Maybe you think it's going to be easy.

Maybe a quick breath. There was the timeout just for a second where Torch rallied his troops, and you just think it's going to be easy. You take a quick breath, and sometimes that's all it takes. I thought the goal at the end of the first period was huge. And then for me is a building block to go in and say, win the second period now. Like, take the second period down, and now you come in with a lead.

You come in with Tide or a lead setting it up for the third. But they came out and just kind of blew the doors off it at the start of the time. the second period. And, you know, everything went in. It was kind of uncharacteristic of them from a defensive standpoint. And then from, you know, the goals going in, Anderson had been so good. And so, I don't know, to me, it was a little bit more fluky. But if you remember how they played in game two against Montreal, it was tight.

I mean, it was like they just completely erased that game. They went back to what's made them successful the entire season, which is hard defense, time and space, physical, no room. harder to do against the team like Vegas, but that's what I would expect in game two. You mentioned Torrance rallying the troops, and we all heard the pep talk that he gave the team when they were down to nothing.

And I'm sure it's a pep talk that most coaches give, and this one just happened to be miced, and it was during the Stanley Cup final. But John Torrell is not for everyone. What is it about this situation where he's just pushing all the right buttons with the Golden Knights? He's an experienced coach that's been there. Like if you think about it,

he's probably coached every situation, that is possible. And I think it was just a smart move to be able to use that timeout, to keep your time out in your pocket, to get the guys in here, to have them come in, catch a minute, feed them some positive information.

Again, it's not a time for panic, especially with that group, but send them in a different direction. Maybe sell them the one goal. You know, get one goal, get on the board, cut it to two to one. You know what we do. You know our identity.

And just bring them in and just try to change the makeup of the game. And sometimes for me, a timeout does that. If you can use the timeout, that he actually call a timeout. He was smart. He was able to do it just with the stoppage,

keep it in his pocket. Like I said, that cool, I thought just making it two to one going in, going in at the end of one. That was a big deal. Lavie, the pressure points come quickly in a playoff series, and it seems like, you know, as soon as Vegas wins game one,

the percentages go way up for, you know, the boat team that wins game one. Like, is it close to a, like, it's got to be almost must win tonight, isn't it? You do not want to go to Vegas down 02. I mean, obviously there's time left, but the Cains immediately have kind of put themselves in a pressure situation here. More than it already is.

Obviously, it makes it more difficult. You get down 02, you get down 1-3. You know, if they do win one, they drop two in a row. It obviously makes it more difficult. But there's a lot to like about the way Carolina has handled things all year. a lot to like about the way that they played. And like I said, I just go back to game two against Montreal. There was nothing there.

It was just so stingy. It was so almost agitated and irritated the way that they played. It gave Montreal nothing. And so I'm kind of expecting a game like that from them. Is that enough? I think it could be. You're right, oh, they don't, you definitely want to go back to Vegas O2. So a must win.

I'd say so, but I kind of think that they'll get it back on track. Lavie, I understand you've been buzzing through some airports. I know that because when you hand a guy at customs for him, it was my brother. He's a cop at the airport. So you can't tell me you weren't at an airport. I just want to know about meeting with teams as a veteran coach. Like has it changed over the years since you came into the league, or just the whole process, how it's different for a guy as experienced as you?

Yeah. I didn't know what your brother. He didn't say that, oh, unless you just busted me right now. No, I swear to God, my brother's a cop at the airport. He should have said, he could have said something. He could have said hi or something. He doesn't, he likes minding his own business. I took my money.

No, it was, listen, you know, when there's, you know, going into interviews, like I've been on a lot of them. I'm not talking right now. I'm just talking in general. Like, it's been on a lot of interviews. And just, you know, I think when teams, when you go in, interview teams are looking for a path or a direction of what is that you think you can bring to a team. And so they're all a little bit different in how they're handled. But I think the main

point is just to be true to yourself and who you are and what you believe in because the last thing you want to do is sell a myth or sell something that you're not. And then get in there and say, wait a minute, I thought we were going to be this or I thought we were going to be that. I always just find, you know, with players or with an interview or whatever, I always find honesty and just directness is the best policy. So that's how I've always handled things. It's a pretty intriguing situation when it comes to the Maple Leafs in that they have the number one pick and yet they don't want to rebuild.

And they have Austin Matthews. He's a former Hart Trophy winner. And they're also going up to Whitehorse to meet with a number one pick. And I was thinking in your long career in the NHL, what is the farthest that you've ever traveled to go talk to a player? probably up to can i remember going to see scottlotton you know just popping in in the game and watching him play and um you know that was that was probably the furthest i had been i hadn't i hadn't gone to like over to europe to watch somebody play i don't think um yeah i think probably

up to canada like scott's probably the last one that i remember um watching it's not always that you get the opportunity to go up and see players or talk to players that are part of your system. And so there was an opportunity and we went. So, Lavi, just back on the coaching interview, just general questions. You know, when you go to prep for a team, say you're flying in for XYZ team, is it a scenario where you go through their depth chart, you go through everything that the team has and potentially could have? And then when you're in these processes, when you're in the room with them,

do they ask specific questions in how you would handle this star player? How would you deploy this? Or what do you think of our goaltending? Like, does it get very specific in these interviews? Yeah, I mean, it can be specific. Again, I don't think anybody or certainly a coach, like, when you go into a game, you do your best to prepare for the opposition. You do your best to prepare for individual players.

you do your best to prepare your own team, whether it might be power play or penalty kill or five on five, like you want to be ready. I think that's in life, though, not necessarily only in a hockey interview, and when you go and interview anywhere in life or if you're preparing for anything that might come your way, I think that you want to be prepared, you want to be ready.

So knowledge of the situation, I think, is always important, you know, with regard to that. You don't want to walk into any situation. You don't want to walk into your team and say, hey, what are we doing in the neutral zone and have the teams and you're looking at saying, wow, I'm not sure. Let me go check. Like, you need answers.

You need to know what's going on. So I think the same thing just goes in life in general. Interviewing for hockey, interviewing for life. Just be ready more than anything. But yeah, I think you should be ready, noodles. Here, Lavillette, joining us on overdrive. As we approach the offseason here and, you know, we were talking about Dylan Larkin, requesting a trade.

as a coach, I know that's more of the GM's role, but when you hear about one of your players requesting a trade or you might, maybe you're hearing rumblings that they're not happy, do you have the inclination to intervene or do you try to make a pointed effort to kind of let the GM do their work? I think for the most part,

there's always conversations, you know, with the GM. That's the general manner's job is to, you know, listen to agents or players if they're talking about a trade. I don't necessarily know that that's the coach's job to intervene with it. But I think there's conversations too that come from it. Again, once you get the information, it's out there and there's knowledge of something or you've had conversations with your GM. I think there's always room to go backwards and talk to the player and figure out how you're

going to work through that. You know, those are often not talking about Dylan, but oftentimes in those situations, sometimes things happen and they happen right away and sometimes they don't and it's still the responsibility of the team and the club to be successful on a nightly basis. So if something like that does happen with a player in general, I think that it happens and your team moves forward in training camp. But if it doesn't happen, again, I think you table it. I always think it's good just to table things just to put it on the table and talk about it and how you're going to move forward inside the team and what's best for the player, what's best for the team and how do you manage that? situation together. Labby, I want to take you back to the finals a little bit where after the first game,

Rod Brindamore said, I need more from my top players. I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically what he said. You know, when you come out publicly and say that, and Rod's a straight shooter, you're a straight shooter. Yeah. Do you find a little bit something different in your approach for the next game to find them maybe a little extra shift here? You know, they know they've kind of been on blast.

They're prideful athletes, but do you? give them a little extra opportunity to kind of go out and show it? I think you absolutely do. I'll always say that. If I bring somebody into my office, old dog was never there. But if I bring, no, no, no, no. If I bring somebody into my office and I challenge them, the worst thing that you could do is give them seven minutes and put them on the fourth line.

Right. And so if that was Roddy's intent to just to nudge them, just to say, hey, listen, it's an honest fact. And he didn't be embarrassed anybody. He didn't be raid anybody. He said, listen, we need more. If your power plays down, you say, we need more on the power play. And your power play players can take that to heart and say, yeah, let's get going. We need to turn this around.

But then you can't switch up the power play units. Or if a line's not going well, you challenge a line. And then before the game starts, they come in and they're not on the same line anymore. Like, what good does it do? And so I would think that you could find a couple more minutes, that you could find a matchup, that you could find an offensive zone start. And maybe it's one. And again, maybe it's just the confidence that they get from that, that challenge

and then the opportunity and then the success of it, maybe that can unleash it a little bit for them. I totally agree, Labby. It's also like running out of time. So if you're giving them a bit of time and some extra zone faceoffs and it doesn't work out, then you've got to get to like drastic measures. It's like somebody's going to sit their ass on the bench or change the lines or something, right? Because there's no time left. Yeah. So for me, oh, there's always a plan B.

So it's game one. And like I said, they came out so strong. And all of a sudden, you know, they find themselves down. I think it was four too, right? And so it was quick. It was really quick. And so I think that you go in tonight, and especially with what we just talked about, you said, listen, we need more. You give them that opportunity. But for me, there's always a card in my back pocket just to say, okay, it's not going well.

it's time to mix it up. It's trying to shake up the third line winger and the first line winger and see if that can bring something to the table. Maybe it's not a long-term thing. Maybe it is. But I do think when you get in these situations and the yardage on the field become shorter and shorter, you have to have a plan B, a plan C in your back pocket.

Well, Peter, we appreciate you coming on. If you are traveling, whether it's for pleasure or for business, Just make sure to say hi to O's brother, and we hope that you travel safely. I'll get him to get you to the front of the line next time. I'm coming up there to see O. Don't kid yourselves. I just came to see Ooggin. Have a beer with him. That was it.

Well, maybe you can golf with O. And unlike the guy who usually hosts the show, you can ride in his cart. Yeah, sounds good. Good luck, Lavi. We'll talk to you soon. All right, guys. Thank you. Take care.

Thanks. Peter Labelette, joining us on the Maple Toyota Hotline. It's time to Toyota. out the Toyota Tacoma and Toyota Tundra pickup trucks, both available as hybrids. Maple Toyota, New York, Canada's Wonderland and the Maple Auto Mall. Hello, Canada. This is Brian Adams Radio. Hosted by Brian Adams himself.

We'll play a few of mine, a ton of my favorites, and some must-hear behind-the-scenes stories from the world of rock and roll. What I'm going to get to? One thing about doing rock and roll so long is you end up meeting a lot of the people that you admire. Sometimes you even get to work with him. Brian Adams Radio Now available on the free IHare Radio app Hey everybody, how are you?