Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

The Rangers celebrate following their 4-3 win over the Capitals in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals on Wednesday.

Also worth watching was Rangers bad boy Sean Avery. Trying his best to agitate the Capitals, he drew a holding penalty for stuffing his glove in John Erskine’s face and had more than his share of confrontations with Mike Green. Avery tripped Green from behind near the blue line — a move just subtle enough to avoid a penalty — to allow Gomez to skate in and beat Theodore in the second period. Avery also shoved his stick into Theodore’s chest in the game’s final moments.

The Capitals will rue the fact that they controlled a first period that ended scoreless. They outshot the Rangers 14-4, and Ovechkin was active with six shots and six hits — including had a few tit-for-tat exchanges with Marc Staal. The league’s leading goal-scorer put on a nice move to get around Michal Rozsival, but his point-blank shot was stopped — one of 13 saves on Ovechkin by Lundqvist.

A shot by Ovechkin did go in — after it was deflected by Fleischmann in the second period. The Capitals’ 1-0 lead lasted barely a minute, however, when Gomez scored after Avery knocked over Green.

Antropov put the Rangers ahead 2-1 with a power-play goal late in the period. Less than a minute later, Sergei Fedorov was whistled for delay of game for clearing the puck over the boards — the second time the Capitals were guilty of that infraction — and the Rangers capitalized when Naslund took a drop pass from Gomez and ripped a slap shot past Theodore.

The Capitals regained some momentum going into the intermission on Viktor Kozlov’s goal, and they tied it 1:42 into the final period on a power-play goal when Semin poked a rebound into the net.

But Dubinsky later won it for the Rangers.

“It was unfortunate for us,” Green said. “They got some lucky shots.”

Notes: C Chris Drury was New York’s only scratch. The Rangers captain had returned to practice Tuesday after missing four days because of an undisclosed injury. “I think he’ll be in Game 2,” Tortorella said. ... Capitals Fs Donald Brashear (sprained knee) was scratched, but C Boyd Gordon (broken finger) and D Tom Poti (strained groin) returned after missing the end of the regular season with injuries.

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