Peter Laviolette has been around a few of these things before.
One hundred and fifty-five of them, to be exact, after Sunday’s 4-1 Rangers playoff victory over the Capitals at the Garden to take a 1-0 series lead.
So, there was zero level of panic in the Rangers’ coach after a first period in which the Capitals played about as close to the blueprint on how they needed to play to have a chance in this series.
The Capitals were doing what they do — muddying up the game and preventing the faster, more skilled Rangers offensive weapons to roam and feast on scoring chances.
Washington had twice as many blocked shots in the first period (eight) as it had shots on Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin (four), and the high-voltage Rangers managed only seven shots on Capitals netminder Charlie Lindgren.
The result was a rather nondescript, scoreless opening 20 minutes to what the Rangers hope to be a very long postseason run, as they chase their first Stanley Cup in 30 years with a team that looks amply built to hoist the chalice at the end of the line.
The by-product of that scoreless first period was the sold-out Garden — 18,006 strong and high on the electricity of postseason anticipation at the start of the game — feeling its buzz wear off.
This is when Laviolette, who’d coached 154 playoff games before Sunday afternoon and led three teams to the Stanley Cup Final, winning one with the Hurricanes and losing with the Flyers and Predators, pushed a few buttons to help turn the game.
Laviolette leaned into the energy that rookie Matt Rempe and his fourth-line mates Jimmy Vesey and Barclay Goodrow were bringing to the building, and he sent that line out earlier than perhaps he would have in the second period.
And it worked to perfection.
The wide-eyed 21-year-old Rempe’s first career playoff goal in his first career playoff game gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead and reignited the buzz in the building. Two minutes and six seconds later, it was 3-0 Rangers.
Artemi Panarin, who had an all-timer of a regular season with 49 goals and 120 points, scored the middle goal of those three with Laviolette keeping him on the ice for a double shift.
This, Laviolette reminded afterward, is something he’s done this season to get his top scorer more ice time. But this was a big button pushed at the right time.
“There was a lot of things that we did well in the first period defensively,’’ Laviolette said. “Offensively, they’ve kept things close to the vest, so we talked about changing a couple things after the first period to try to get a little bit better.
“It was pretty tight in the first period. They [the Capitals] have been playing some pretty tight hockey. We knew that coming in. That [Rempe goal] was a big goal. It put energy into the building. That was a turning point in the game.’’
It was a turning point the veteran coach helped create — even if he’s reticent to bask in any credit for it.
The Rangers have a better, deeper, more skilled team than Washington. They, too, have a team with a lot more playoff experience than the Capitals. That goes for the men behind the bench, too.
Capitals coach Spencer Carbery, who succeeded Laviolette in Washington after Laviolette went to the Rangers, was coaching in his first playoff game Sunday.
It’s not as if Carbery did anything to lose the game. He’s playing against a stacked deck of sorts against the Presidents’ Trophy winners.
But on this day, Laviolette made at least a small difference.
“The hockey that they’ve been playing and that we’ve been scouting is that they’re a little bit more low-event,’’ Laviolette said of the Caps. “So, not as high with the offense and it’s harder to generate [offense against them] as well. They’re closer to the vest. The game played out probably the way we thought it would.’’
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