The Rangers won’t get a chance to avenge last year’s loss to the Bruins, and Alain Vigneault won’t have an opportunity for payback against the team that ripped the Stanley Cup out of his hands.
The Canadiens made sure of that when they completed their upset of Boston on Wednesday night. But that doesn’t mean the lessons Vigneault learned from that painful seven-game Stanley Cup defeat in 2011 when he was the Canucks’ coach won’t play a role in these Eastern Conference Finals.
With time running down in Game 7 against the Penguins and protecting a one-goal lead, Vigneault constantly switched his four lines to keep them fresh.
“Alain is coaching as well or better than I’ve ever seen him coach before,” said NBC analyst Pierre McGuire, who was an assistant coach with Vigneault on the Senators in the early ’90s. Before that, Vigneault was the Canadiens’ head coach for a little more than three seasons.
“I’ve seen his growth as a coach and it’s been tremendous. He realized when he played Boston in the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals, he did not have four lines that can play against Boston’s.”
He has that now with the Rangers, and will try to use their depth against a Canadiens team which will be trying to win its first Stanley Cup — and Canada’s first — since 1993.
“The Rangers and Canadiens will be a real track-meet kind of a series,” McGuire said. “Montreal’s organizational identity is that they play fast, real skilled hockey and they come after you in waves with pace.”
The Rangers will try and neutralize that not only with their stars — such as Rich Nash and Martin St. Louis — but also with their unheralded third line of Derick Brassard, Mats Zuccarello and Benoit Pouliot. That trio has combined for 10 goals and 23 points to go along with a plus-10 rating through the first two rounds.
“They dominate the puck, they are very good on the cycle,” McGuire said. “Brassard is excellent on faceoff situations, Pouliot has been a big body and skates very well for a big man, which makes him very good on the forecheck. And Zuccarello is just a very underrated player.”
McGuire credits how the team “galvanized” following the passing of St. Louis’ mother in helping the Rangers rally against Pittsburgh. But also points to the demeanor of Vigneault, who orchestrated the first Rangers’ comeback from a 3-1 series deficit. That is one of the major differences between Vigneault and predecessor John Tortorella.
“He’s such a veteran coach now that he never panicked. And I think the veterans really appreciated that,” McGuire said. “Under the previous regime, panic was a by-product of what they were selling. It wasn’t working and that’s why they had to make a coaching change.
“Alain has kept it calm, he’s kept it cool, he challenges players, but he never really lost it. … The players really enjoy playing his style of hockey, which is a faster, more skillful game than what they were doing under the previous regime.”