Laviolette fired; Maurice returns

RALEIGH -- The Carolina Hurricanes have turned back to the past to try and solve their present problems.

The Canes, who fired coach Peter Laviolette this morning, announced they have hired former coach Paul Maurice. General manager Jim Rutherford introduced Maurice in a news conference at the RBC Center.

Ron Francis will serve as associate coach, Rutherford said. Francis, who played for Maurice on the 2002 Carolina team that reached the Stanley Cup final, was the Canes' assistant general manager and director of player development.

Rutherford said Maurice would serve as coach until the end of this season, and that a decision on future years then would be made. No financial terms were released. Maurice still is under contract with the Maple Leafs, but Rutherford said the Hurricanes negotiated a deal with Toronto to "lighten the load" for the Leafs financially.

"I'm very thankful to Peter for the job that he's done here," Rutherford said of Laviolette, who led the Canes to the Stanley Cup title in 2006. "He did a lot of good things ... andf I have a lot of respect for him. I know he will do well going forward.

"Coaching changes sometimes become a necessity. ... We have a team right now that in my opinion is not playing with the kind of confidence it needs. We've lost that confidence. ...

"It's not about the last four or five games. It's about changing to get the chemistry back on our team and get the confidence back on the team and make, what I would say, minor adjustments in a system that really worked in the Stanley Cup year but teams have adjusted to it and our team hasn't adjusted the last couple of years."

Maurice, 41, is the winningest coach in franchise history with 268 wins in 674 regular-season games. He was fired in the 2003-2004 season.

Maurice said he would not immediately make wholesale changes to the Canes, who are 12-11-2 after Sunday's 4-1 loss to the Anaheim Ducks.

"We are not going to try to change the identity of the team in terms of how it plays, because it's built a certain way," Maurice said. "It's built with speed and it's built to be aggressive. Because of that we're going to try to continue that.

"We are going to try to make some adjustments that we hope not many people notice except on our end of the ice. But the speed and the things you enjoy about watching the Carolina Hurricanes play and that I worried about coaching against them, we'd like to see as much of that as possible."

Rutherford said Maurice matured as coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs after leaving Carolina and would bring a "new voice" to the locker room.

"He's a new voice and he's a guy who understands the game and has a lot of coaching experience," he said.

Rutherford said he talked Monday with team owner Peter Karmanos Jr. to discuss the situation. He said he then met with Laviolette Tuesday afternoon and the decision to make a change was made later in the day. 

Rutherford said he talked with Brian Burke, the Maple Leafs' new general manager, to receive permission to speak with Maurice.

Rutherford said he met with Laviolette again this morning to finalize the decision.

"He handled it well,"  Rutherford said.