SUNRISE, Fla. — It was just over a year ago, May 16 to be exact, the Rangers were a couple of weeks into a coaching search after Gerard Gallant and the club parted ways following the first-round debacle against New Jersey.
Peter Laviolette, who had just departed Washington after three so-so seasons, became the immediate front-runner. His candidacy was not welcomed by the noisy social media folks, who were clamoring for GM Chris Drury to be creative and a hire a young, new voice.
And I wrote a column suggesting that there is some value in hiring a recyclable.
It was true then and it is true now and this does not apply to only the Rangers.
Laviolette is on his sixth team. Florida coach Paul Maurice is on his fifth team. Laviolette’s NHL coaching career started at age 37 with the Islanders in 2001-02. Maurice’s NHL career started at age 29 with the Hartford Whalers in 1995-96.
Now, Maurice has coached the second-most games in the history of the league at 1,849, 292 behind all-time leader’s Scott Bowman’s 2,141. Laviolette is ninth a 1,512.
Now, Maurice is fourth on the all-time NHL wins list with 869. Laviolette is seventh with 807 career NHL victories. By the way? Bowman’s 1,244 wins leads runner-up Joel Quenneville by 275 victories.
Plus, there is a rather wild connection between these coaches of the Eastern Conference finalists who faced off here in Tuesday’s Game 4 with the Blueshirts seeking to assume a 3-1 lead with Game 5 set for the Garden on Thursday.
Laviolette both replaced and was replaced by Maurice in Carolina five seasons apart. The first exchange was during the 2003-04 season with the reversal of fortune occurring in 2008-09. In the interim, of course, the Canes won the 2006 Stanley Cup with Laviolette behind the bench.
The two coaches also faced off in the second round of the 2018 playoffs, with Laviolette behind the Predators bench and Maurice coaching the Jets. This was Laviolette’s first Presidents’ Trophy-winning team. Nashville finished with 117 points. Winnipeg finished second overall in the league with 114 points. The Jets prevailed in seven games.
I asked Laviolette if he has an appreciation for coaches like Maurice who have succeeded at the profession’s highest level for decades.
“I for sure have an appreciation,” Laviolette said in advance of Game 4. “You’re talking about guys that have done it at a high level with a lot of different teams and a lot of different circumstances and situations.
“They clearly have been really good at what they do, whether it be their game, their game plan, their relationships, their motivation, their communication. They’re teachers, and I think everybody’s a little bit different, too. Nobody does it the same way. Everybody does it a little bit different, but I do think that you’re talking about a really good group of coaches there that have been around the game a long time, and it’s not by chance.
“They’ve done it because they’ve been successful.”
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Laviolette’s cornucopia of experience paid off for the Rangers in Sunday’s improbable 5-4 overtime victory. It was early in the third period, the Puddy Tats had roared back to erase a 4-2 deficit by scoring twice 1:54 apart within the opening 6:58. The Rangers couldn’t get out. They were under siege. The game had been condensed to the 65 feet by 85 feet dimensions of the club’s defensive zone.
The sky was falling, the roof was caving in, and a tornado was brewing like the one that catapulted Dorothy to the Land of Oz.
The clubs were set to line up for a faceoff in the defensive zone left circle at the 8:30 mark when Laviolette called his beleaguered athletes to the bench.
Timeout.
“I learned it early in my career, if you’re sitting on the bench saying, ‘Should I take the timeout? Should I take a timeout?’ the answer is yes, take the timeout,” the coach said. “I was going about that in the middle of the third period. I said it to myself twice, and at that point I talked to one of my coaches and he agreed.
“It was just a chance to stop it. I didn’t like the way it was going. The goals had been scored and a couple more shifts had happened and we were just not where we needed to be. I actually thought that we came out and we pressed a couple, maybe three shifts or four shifts in a row where we were down there, we got looks.
“The purpose was just to stop the game and try to send it in a different direction.”
The maneuver worked, at least well enough for the Rangers to regroup and force overtime.
Laviolette’s impact on the Rangers his first year behind the bench has been transformative. The team has inherited his mindset. Detail-oriented. Always positive. Always constructive.
“His philosophy is come to the rink every day with a competitive mindset, whether in practices or even off-days,” K’Andre Miller said. “We have that competitive vibe in the room.
“Guys are having fun coming to the rink.”
Guys are having fun coming to the rink because they’ve been doing a whole lot of winning since Laviolette arrived. There may be something to the concept of hiring a recyclable, after all.
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