One day after the New York Rangers gave their head coach Alain Vigneault a two-year extension and a pay raise, the team was blown out by the rival Columbus Blue Jackets. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody.
What the hell was that…
A night after the New York Rangers gave Alain Vigneault his contract extension–which they shouldn’t have done yet anyway–they went out on the Garden ice and were blown out yet again. This time by a score of 6-4 against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
It is starting to become routine now for the Rangers to not only lose at home in front of their fans–fans who pay more money per ticket than any other fan base in the league–but get completely blown out in the process.
Remember, it was 6-0 at one point in the third. It was nowhere near as close as the score indicated.
The Rangers have allowed more than three goals in five of their last eight at the Garden. They have given up six or more goals in three of those five. And in seven of those eight, they were grossly outplayed.
Although he hasn’t been great, Henrik Lundqvist doesn’t deserve the majority of the blame. Neither does Antti Raanta. Dan Girardi and Kevin Klein don’t need to be reminded anymore of how poorly they have performed.
Their’s one man to blame and he wears a suit every game.
No, not Adam Clendening.
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It’s Alain Vigneault.
The Rangers giving Vigneault a contract extension at this point of the season, in a stretch this bad is exactly why it’s hard to trust this franchise. It also explains how they can make such tone-deaf decisions as a group like they did at the trade deadline last year when they acquired an old center in the worst year of his career because they thought they had a problem up the middle.
It’s insane, it’s absurd and it is a disgrace that a coach who has refused to adapt, refused to stop making excuses and refused to play the players who deserve to be played over his favorites received even more job security, as it appears the team is walking right towards another five-game first round playoff exit.
People ask all the time why I want a coach canned, because, they say, “it makes no sense!” They are always sure to cite, “he has taken the team to two Eastern Conference finals in the last three years!”
Alain Vigneault should be fired because, not only does he play favorites instead of playing the guys playing the best, but he cannot prepare his team for a game. This has gone on for two seasons now.
And I don’t care what the final score of last night was. I don’t care what the final score against Dallas or any other game with a similar timeline of events was. The fact that you can allow your team to look so lethargic and flat out unprepared is a joke.
In most organizations, Vigneault would be on the hot seat.
But in this one, where the owner doesn’t know a puck from a Coke Zero can, Vigneault’s seat is as cool as the other side of the pillow.
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And that’s not fair to the players or the fans.