What went wrong for the New York Rangers: Alain Vigneault

After five seasons at the helm of the New York Rangers, Alain Vigneault was relieved of his duties as coach. This year was a disaster, but it went wrong well before that.

Most everyone knew that Vigneault would be done after this season. His track record with the team was good to begin with. However, towards the end of his tenure it was marred with bad decisions and stubbornness. Vigneault lead a team in his first season to the Stanley Cup Finals that probably shouldn’t have been there. In the years following he lead teams that should have contended for the Finals short of that goal.

Now with Vigneault gone, the Rangers will embark on a new journey. The hope for Jeff Gorton is that he can find a coach who will be able to develop the young talent that the team is looking to inject in to the roster. Vigneault was one of the more successful coaches in Rangers history, however, among many fans, his tenure will be remembered by the fact that he couldn’t deliver the cup he was brought there to deliver.

I see no changes

The Alain Vigneault problems started last season, well before the puck even dropped on the dismal 2017-2018 campaign. The problems started with playing time decisions in last years playoffs. While it wasn’t entirely Vigneault’s fault that the Rangers exited the playoffs early last season, he should certainly shoulder the blame for some of it. The loss to Ottawa was surprising to see, considering many felt New York was the better team.

This season started off on the wrong foot and got worse for Vigneault. He was already on the hot seat to begin with. After a poor start and a slight rebound, New York began a downward trajectory that lasted the rest of the season. Through this time Vigneault continued to mismanage the lineup. He allotted more ice time to players who didn’t deserve it. He sat players for reasons that didn’t make sense. Through it all, he denied that anything was wrong.

Vigneault’s mismanagement of the team was one of the big reasons why the team floundered from the beginning. It was the lack of changes he made to the lineups during the course of the season. When the team was losing, Vigneault seemed to make even fewer adjustments than when the team was winning. The recipe just didn’t work New York.

No young guns

Another reason why Vigneault didn’t work this year, and wouldn’t work in the future is that he mismanaged the young talent on the team. New York was working with a young lineup to begin this season. After various injuries the team was forced to get even younger. Vigneault did not seem to get that. He continued to trot out the same lineup night in and night out. David Desharnais and Cody McLeod regularly received more ice time than Pavel Buchnevich and Jimmy Vesey.

Players like Anthony DeAngelo, Neal Pionk and John Gilmour didn’t even get call ups until after the trade deadline. Vigneault only made changes when he was forced to make those changes. Outside of that he was stubborn and stuck to his guns, which only produced losing streaks of four and five games regularly. The same reason stated above is why Vigneault wouldn’t have worked in the future as well.

With the Rangers completely selling during the deadline, the team made the decision to go with an influx of new talent. Vigneault has consistently shown that he can mismanage a team and especially mismanage young talent.

Next: Difference between a retool and a rebuild

The Vigneault era is over in New York. As well as it started, it ended in an equally poor way. Vigneault will be remembered for a great career in New York that never reached expectations. He will also be remembered for the way that this year started and ended, with poor judgement and mismanagement throughout.

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