He sucked late in the year and in the playoffs. I think everyone knows that. There's like one guy who's been defending him in general and most here wanted to see TVR vs Boston. He was the 3rd highest vote getter for our "on the hot seat this offseason" poll behind Kuzy and Chara. So "a lot of people" is false or misleading.
As for the coach's decision, you have to ask him. We're not in the locker room or war room so we don't know the Xs and Os they discuss, the little injuries and nuances, etc.
What about earlier in the season? What kind of numbers did he have then?
I wasn't just talking about people here, I'm talking about Laviolette, I'm talking about the beat writers (Tarik El Bashir in particular who noted that Schultz had a "solid" first season in Washington), I'm talking about fans that I interact with elsewhere who thought Schultz had a good season overall. So yes, I think a lot of people is accurate.
Of course I do not have access to Peter Laviolette or have him in my rolodex, so unfortunately I cannot ping him and see what his thinking was. Given the information I have, in my opinion he made a pretty big mistake by either not limiting Schultz's minutes, or not scratching him completely given a perfectly good option on the bench to replace him.
Here's a rolling 10-game xGD graph:
So he did start out pretty well, but tailed off quite substantially toward the end. Of course a lot of his uptick is playing alongside Dmitry Orlov, who is an excellent playdriver.
More concerning than his first year in DC is his multiyear trend and his isolated impacts over the years, which have been trending down:
Maybe it's because of injuries, but do we really expect this guy to have a healthy season next year?