With the sport of hockey mired in a crisis involving accusations of abusive conduct by its coaches, Predators coach Peter Laviolette stepped out of his office after practice Friday to address two allegations.



On Wednesday, Daniel Carcillo, who played for Laviolette with the Philadelphia Flyers from 2009-11, appeared on a local radio show and said, “There were a lot of things that annoyed me about him. He was one of the guys that liked to be the ‘rah-rah’ guy, send you out to fight when you know that he never fought. There’s a lot of stuff that I don’t agree with what he did, his coaching methods.”



On Friday, ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski spoke to retired forward Ville Leino, whom Laviolette struck in the head during a February 2011 game when they were with the Flyers. Clips of Laviolette hitting Leino on the bench resurfaced on social media after an incident between former Toronto Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock and forward Mitch...