Make no mistake. The power play, an oxymoronic term over the last two seasons, in which the Rangers ranked 23rd in the NHL with the man advantage in both 2011-12 and 2012-13, is the ultimate responsibility of head coach Alain Vigneault.
“The buck stops with me,” Vigneault said following Friday’s workout.
“I am going to empower [assistant Scott Arniel] on the power play and [assistant] Ulf Samuelsson on the penalty killing a little bit more, but I’m the one at the end of the day who is accountable for those situations.”
Arniel, the former head coach of the Blue Jackets who has a history with Rick Nash, Derick Brassard, Derek Dorsett, John Moore and Anton Stralman, watched tape this summer of every one of the Blueshirts’ 197 power plays from last year’s regular season and playoffs.
Right: better him than you.
Arniel, who operated as head coach of Vancouver’s AHL Chicago affiliate last year, did not offer a direct critique of last season’s dysfunctional power play that went 4-for-44 in the playoffs. Neither did Vigneault, who dropped the convenient “I wasn’t here” card.
But in discussing Nash’s role on the five-on-four, Arniel implied the overall approach was every bit as faulty as the execution. Indeed, the PP was so haphazard, the Rangers might as well have worn blindfolds to their own man-advantage executions.
“I noticed there were a lot of different looks with [Nash] in a lot of different places,” Arniel said. “We’re going to try and get him in the best place possible and more than likely that’s somewhere out in front of that net, whether it’s in the high slot or right in front.
“As a staff, we’re going to have to try and fit people in. Our defense [has] a lot of guys who can slide in on the power play. It’ll be a little of trial and error in the exhibition games; throw them in, maybe they jump out at us.
“Maybe they’re a net-front guy or a half-wall guy. We’ve got to play it through.”
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Arniel and Brassard both insisted any issues between the two men that may have existed in Columbus are history.
Brassard’s agent, Allan Walsh, had sent a statement to the Columbus Dispatch on Dec. 1, 2011 in which he excoriated the coach when the center was about to become a healthy scratch for the Jackets for the seventh time in 10 games in the midst of a 2-2-4, minus-11 getaway in
17 matches.
“… The situation regarding Derick Brassard has become untenable,”
Walsh wrote. “The coach has a history of burying players and using them as scapegoats to make his own lack of success on the ice. Derick has been singled out …”
Arniel was fired a little more than a month later, on Jan. 9, 2012, 41 games into his second season behind the Columbus bench with the club
11-25-5 following the 2010-11 playoff-miss record of 34-35-13.
Brassard, whom the Rangers acquired with Dorsett and Moore in last year’s deadline deal for Marian Gaborik, said he had no complaint with Arniel. Indeed, Brassard called Arniel to congratulate him when he was named to the Blueshirts’ staff this summer.
“I talked to Arnie when he was hired — I called him — and said, ‘No hard feelings,’ ” Brassard said. “What happened is in the past and I’m looking in front of me.”
“I think he’s a good addition. Like it says on our shirts, ‘Clean slate.’ Everything’s good between us.”
Arniel said the situation in Columbus was “created” by Walsh.
“Derick and I never really had an issue,” Arniel said. “We talked about it then and cleared the air.
“You see the class of Derick; he phoned me the day after I got hired and we had a great conversation. There’s nothing personal. Derick and I work together. We’ve turned the page and both moved on, hopefully to better days ahead.”
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Drills on first day of camp were geared toward a couple of Vigneault’s principles that he outlined after coming off the ice.
“Driving the net,” he said. “It’s a tough league [in which] to score goals. If you want to score goals, you have got to go to the net and be willing to stop in front of the net and sometimes pay a heavy price to be there.
“If you notice, on a lot of the drills we had guys driving to the net hard, stopping in front of that net, throwing pucks at the goaltender,” Vigneault said. “A lot of times that little shot in his feet is as good as a pass.
“Those were some of the principles we were trying to instill when you talk about our play with the puck. The rest of it was more timing.”
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There was no progress yesterday toward resolving the negotiating impasse between the Rangers and unsigned restricted free agent Derek Stepan.