Where do we even begin?
You can choose to be angry at any one person, and you’d be justified for feeling that way.
You can put all of this on Alain Vigneault if you wanted to. He has thoroughly botched the defensive pairings in each game after the 8-5 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs, and has arguably set back the clock on how long it’ll take the unit to gel as a whole. Outside of the KZB line, his forward rotations have been curious, at best, and his inability to give Filip Chytil even the smallest of chances of a breakthrough at the NHL level is damning.
You could put all this on the 9 forwards that don’t find themselves on the top line. Rick Nash finally capitalized on an opportunity against the Devils, but his ability to create chances without being able to turn those into points can be maddening. Kevin Hayes has once again been an invisible man early on (though this I would put on AV playing Hayes in a role he’s simply never going to succeed in). Jimmy Vesey and J.T. Miller have shown spurts, but neither have been able to consistently create opportunities when they’re on the ice.
You could even blame the defense if you wanted to. Yes, Steve Kampfer and Nick Holden have been the dumpster fire we’ve all expected them to be. But, outside of Ryan McDonagh, no defenseman has truly lived up to their preseason expectations (actually, Marc Staal hasn’t been a liability, which for him means he’s outperformed his extremely low expectations). Kevin Shattenkirk has been a wizard on the man advantage, but he’s been inconsistent in 5v5 situations. Had Brendan Smith been named Kevin Klein or Dan Girardi and played the way he did in the first few games this season, fans wouldn’t have been that disappointed in him being scratched (though who he was scratched for is the larger problem – we’re getting there).
You could do all that, and it would be impossible for someone to tell you you’re flat-out wrong if you blamed the individual parts.
For me, it’s the whole. And the responsibility of the whole falls squarely on the coach.
In my mind, Alain Vigneault is not putting the Rangers in a position to win on a nightly basis, which is the very first responsibility for a coach on a team that fancies itself a playoff contender.
The Rangers made a whirlwind of moves this off-season, especially on defense. It would be irresponsible of management and the coaching staff to assume everyone would have mid-season chemistry by opening night. You expect there to be hiccups to start the season and you expect there to be miscues that lead to scoring chances early on. The sign of a successful team and successful pairing is the limitation of those mistakes and the eventual elimination of them on a nightly basis. The only way for that to happen is repetition and consistent playing time. Alain Vigneault yo-yoing players up and down his pairings isn’t doing anyone any good. Playing inferior defenseman like Steve Kampfer and Nick Holden over Brendan Smith and Anthony DeAngelo is tying one hand behind your back and leaving yourself with only one broken hand to use.
The defensive pairings should be Ryan McDonagh-Kevin Shattenkirk, Brady Skjei-Brendan Smith, Marc Staal-Anthony DeAngelo. Those six defenders should be out there every night for the next two weeks without inserting either Holden or Kampfer unless there’s an injury. If it’s not working after two weeks, then the Rangers have much larger problems than their potential playoff standing. If those six defenseman aren’t working as a unit, the Rangers would be forced to re-think their entire long-term strategy defensively (sans Staal). The constant shuffling doesn’t do anyone any good, but especially hurts this team’s ability to judge what the hell they even have.
Offensively, the struggles this team is currently experiencing are struggles we’re very much used to. Part of the problem is not being able to capitalize on the chances they create for themselves. An equal part of the problem, though, is the roles in which some of these guys are being asked to play.
Kevin Hayes is not a shutdown center. He has never been a shutdown center. He will likely never be a shutdown center. That’s not his style. That’s not his template. That’s not how any other NHL team would be asking Hayes to play. And yet, the Rangers are.
Hayes has consistently struggled in that role for New York over the last two seasons. Just once, it would be fascinating to see Hayes on a line with Jimmy Vesey and Mats Zuccarello in a styled offensively line he’s much more likely to succeed with. Asking him to play a role for your team under the assumption of “well, someone has to” is a shit way to run an organization. If the Rangers need a shutdown center, trade for one! Otherwise, you have to adjust your style of play to the pieces you have and find success that way. It’s embarrassing otherwise.
Furthermore, David Desharnais was not brought in this off-season to play a top six role. In fact, Desharnais wasn’t even brought in to play a top nine role this season. Desharnais is a useful player for what he is – a source of offense on the fourth line that doesn’t give up anything if you have to move him up in a pinch to the third line. He should not be on the second power play unit, and he should under no circumstance be seeing more ice time than Pavel Buchnevich, Jimmy Vesey and Rick Nash, which is something he managed to do against the Devils.
Jimmy Vesey should be given a chance to play. This team has a clear need for another top nine scoring option, and Vesey has already shown an ability to finish in the NHL. Him getting under nine minutes of ice time last night is idiotic. The offense is out of sorts right now. Why bury a potential solution to the problem? Why not take a chance when a chance is warranted?
The solutions to this problem are many. Some of them simple (allow your defense to gel, change Kevin Hayes’s role) and some of them aren’t (this team desperately needs to add a center since AV has written Chytil out of the picture for this year – which is a completely different story altogether). One thing is clear – very little of what Alain Vigneault has done this year has worked. Much like very little of what Vigneault did in the playoffs last year worked. Much like very little of what Vigeanult did the year before that against the Penguins worked. Much like little of Vigneault’s usage of Keith Yandle worked.
I’m sensing a pattern.
Author: Greg Kaplan
Greg Kaplan is a man of mystery. Did he write this? No. Was he asked to write this? Yes. But did he write this article? Maybe, do you like it?