SUNRISE, Fla. — Exactly one year ago, May 16 to be exact, the Rangers were two weeks into their coaching search after the team parted ways with Gerard Gallant following a blowout first-round loss to New Jersey.
Peter Laviolette, fresh from leaving Washington after three mediocre seasons, quickly became the leading candidate. His candidacy was not well received by the vociferous social media crowd who were clamoring for general manager Chris Drury to get creative and hire a younger, newer voice.
And then I wrote a column suggesting that hiring a recycler could be worth it.
That was true then and it’s true now, and it doesn’t just apply to Rangers.
Laviolette is on his sixth team. Florida coach Paul Maurice is on his fifth. Laviolette’s NHL coaching career began at age 37 with the Islanders in 2001-02. Maurice’s NHL coaching career began at age 29 with the Hartford Whalers in 1995-96.
Maurice currently has the second-most games coached in league history with 1,849, 292 games behind all-time leader Scott Bowman’s 2,141. Laviolette is ninth with 1,512 games coached.
Maurice currently ranks fourth all-time in NHL wins with 869. Laviolette is seventh with 807. Bowman’s 1,244 wins put him 275 ahead of second-place Joel Quenneville.
And there’s a rather unexpected connection between the coaching staff of the Eastern Conference final-bound team that faced them here in Tuesday’s Game 4 and the Blueshirts, who will take a 3-1 lead into Thursday’s Game 5 at the Garden.
Laviolette replaced Maurice after five separate seasons in Carolina, first in 2003-04 and then in 2008-09 when fortunes reversed, during which Carolina, of course, won the 2006 Stanley Cup with Laviolette on the bench.
The two coaches also faced off in the second round of the 2018 playoffs, with Laviolette on the bench for the Predators and Maurice coaching the Jets. It was Laviolette’s first team to win the Presidents Trophy. Nashville finished with 117 points. Winnipeg was second overall in the league with 114 points. The Jets won seven games.
I asked Laviolette if he wanted to express his gratitude to coaches like Maurice, who have been successful at the highest level of the profession for decades.
“Obviously I’m grateful,” Laviolette said ahead of Game 4. “You’re talking about guys who have performed at a high level on different teams, in different situations and circumstances.
“They’re really good at everything they do: the game, the game planning, the relationships, the motivation, the communication. They’re teachers. I think everybody’s a little bit different. Nobody does it the same way. Everybody’s a little bit different, but they’re a really good group of coaches, guys that have been in the sport for a long time. That’s not a coincidence.”
“They did it because they were successful.”
The Post follows Rangers coverage in the NHL playoffs
Laviolette’s vast experience paid off for the Rangers in their incredible 5-4 overtime victory Sunday. Early in the third period, Paddy Tutts scored two points 1 minute 54 seconds apart in the first 6 minutes 58 seconds to overturn a 4-2 deficit. The Rangers couldn’t escape. They were under siege. The game was condensed to the 65-foot-by-85-foot dimensions of the club’s defensive zone.
The sky was falling, roofs were collapsing, and there was a tornado like the one that transported Dorothy to the Land of Oz.
With 8:30 to go, both teams were preparing for a faceoff in the left circle of the defensive zone when Laviolette called his beleaguered players to the bench.
timeout.
“I learned early on in my career that if you sit on the bench and you ask, ‘Should we take a timeout? Should we take a timeout?’ the answer is yes, take a timeout,” the coach said. “I was thinking that midway through the third period. I said that to myself a couple of times and I talked to one of the coaches at that point and he agreed with me.”
“It was just a chance to stop it. I didn’t like the way the game was going. The goal was scored, we had a couple more substitutions but we weren’t where we needed to be. The fact is, we came out and pressed a couple of times, maybe three or four times in a row, and we were down so I think we had our chances.”
“The aim was to stop the game and let it go in a different direction.”
The tactic worked, at least enough for the Rangers to regroup and take the game into extra time.
Laviolette’s impact on the Rangers in his first season off the bench was transformative, and the team has adopted his mindset: detail-oriented, always positive, always constructive.
“His philosophy is to come to the rink every day, whether it’s practice or an off day, to be competitive,” K’Andre Miller said. “We have a competitive atmosphere in the room.”
“Everybody comes to the rink and has fun.”
Since Laviolette arrived, the players have been winning a lot and seem to enjoy coming to the rink, so maybe there’s something to the concept of hiring recyclable players after all.
