PHILADELPHIA — In hockey parlance, the coach of the Rangers told everybody that regardless of the final 34-39-9 score run up against the team, he had his man.
Alain Vigneault, a proud fellow with a résumé that includes being tied for the 10th-most victories in the NHL and the third most in Rangers history, delivered an impassioned defense of his record on Saturday, citing successes with veteran and younger teams in Montreal and Vancouver, as well as on Broadway.
It was an oration following his team’s dreary 5-0 defeat to the Flyers in the season finale in which he pumped his and his staff’s tires without a nod to accepting even a portion of the blame for a year that skidded off the shoulder and into a ravine by the middle of January, even if the decree by ownership and management to pull the plug didn’t come until early February.
Asked whether he expects to be back for a sixth season, Vigneault did not hesitate for even a moment.
“Yes, yes,” he said. “I think this staff is the right staff for the job. In my opinion, one of the strongest assets of this organization is the coaching staff.”
Let’s make this perfectly clear. Vigneault, with 648 career victories and three Presidents’ Trophies as notches on his belt, is a big-time coach. He has been professional every step of the way since coming to New York from Vancouver, where, he hastened to remind the collectively slack-jawed media listening to his monologue, the Canucks are on their third coach since his departure following 2012-13, and without any success to show for it.
And let’s make this clear as well. The pitch with which Vigneault needs to thread the needle is the one he will be called on to make to Jeff Gorton, the general manager who in February said that a decision on the coach’s future would be deferred until after the season. Presumably, the two men will chat Sunday or Monday in advance of the Blueshirts’ breakup day on Tuesday.
There is no obvious candidate knocking on the door, though there are many intriguing would-be fresh faced candidates such as the University of Denver’s Jim Montgomery, the AHL Marlies’ Sheldon Keefe, Union College’s Rick Bennett and Wisconsin’s Tony Granato. There are, of course, the NHL guys out of work such as Dan Bylsma and Dave Tippett, and even Patrick Roy.
But there’s no gotcha candidate who would be able to get into a tape-measuring contest with Vigneault and win it. So ownership would likely be committing to a largely unknown commodity if the decision is reached to end the association with Vigneault, even with two years remaining on his contract.
That’s understood. But that isn’t a reason for sticking with the known quantity if the quality on the return has steadily declined over the past three years, the way it has on Broadway. It would, in fact, take an essentially equal leap of faith for Gorton, the organization and Jim Dolan to remain committed to Vigneault, as it would to chart a new course.
There has been serious slippage over the past three seasons. Attention to detail has waned. Defensive zone play has been atrocious, whether the Rangers have put six veterans or four neophytes on the blue line. The front of the net has been ceded to the opponent. Backchecking from the forwards has been treated as an optional assignment.
But it is not just that. The Rangers have become a passive group since Martin St. Louis’ retirement following 2014-15. They have become a walk-in-the-park opponent, forever turning the other cheek, much in the image of their whistle-to-whistle coach, instead of seeking to take an eye for an eye.
The night of Feb. 3 in Nashville, when both Marc Staal and Jimmy Vesey were targeted by head shots without a response, served as an example of the issues stirring since at least the 2015 conference final, when Vigneault chastised Chris Kreider for stepping up for Ryan McDonagh (and picking up an extra minor) in Game 6 when the captain was run by Steven Stamkos. It was that way in Vancouver, too, in 2011 when the Canucks for the most part stood by and depended on their power play while the Bruins bullied them in the seven-game Stanley Cup final defeat that haunts the coach to this day.
Vigneault has made his public pitch. The next one will be delivered to the person, if not persons — should president Glen Sather and the owner also sit in — who will decide his fate. They are the ones to whom he is accountable.
I’m not so sure that “Don’t blame me, I had my man” is the way to go.