PHILADELPHIA, PA - OCTOBER 09: Philadelphia Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault looks on during the game between the New Jersey Devils and the Philadelphia Flyers on October 9, 2019, at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA. (Photo by Andy Lewis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Former New York Rangers head coach Alain Vigneault is a good bench boss with a long memory.
Someone pass Marc Bergevin a tissue. The Montreal Canadiens’ general manager is crying again. This time it’s over former New York Rangers head coach Alain Vigneault’s comment regarding injured Habs forward Brendan Gallagher.
Vigneault, whose Philadelphia Flyers were battling Montreal in the first round of the Playoffs, was not the least sympathetic toward Gallagher, whose jaw was broken in Game Five on Wednesday by a cross-check from Flyers’ defenseman Matt Niskanen.
“Brendan Gallagher will be missing an extended period of time,” said Bergevin, Habs’ GM since 2012. “And (he) will be eating his meals out of a straw.”
Such whine and cheese is nothing new from the Canadiens’ organization. They did plenty of it during and after the 2014 Conference Finals, which they lost in six games to the Rangers while showing no remorse for the cheapshot that broke Derek Stepan’s jaw and fueling the belief that Chris Kreider intentionally fell into and injured star goalie Carey Price.
Six years later, the Canadiens are again reaching for the tissues. And it’s as laughable now as it was then.
Gallagher required surgery to repair the damage and is done for the season. Even if the 5-foot-8, 184-pound Canadiens’ pest wanted to play he couldn’t because he has to leave the Toronto bubble for the procedure and must quarantine for four days upon returning.
If there had been a Game Seven on Sunday, Niskanen would have returned to play while Gallagher would have been forced to merely watch.
Vigneault was not sympathetic.
Prior to learning the extent of Gallagher’s injury on Thursday, Vigneault said: “Gallagher got up and seemed fine. He was talking to the referees. The whole time that he was on the bench he was talking to our players for the rest of the game. Gallagher’s a very competitive player. I don’t think it’s Nisky’s fault that he might not be as tall as some of the other guys, but he competes as big, if not bigger than anybody else. Just seemed a hockey play that unfortunately cut (Gallagher) a little bit.”
Bergevin countered on Friday morning, telling the Montreal Gazette: “I was expecting more and I’m extremely disappointed that AV would make a comment about a player’s injuries without knowing the extent of it. Brendan Gallagher will be missing an extended period of time and will be eating his meals out of a straw. I don’t wish that on anybody — and that includes the Flyers players. It’s a battle out there and we don’t want people to get hurt like that.”
Given the opportunity on Friday afternoon to amend his comments now knowing Gallagher’s plight, Vigneault doubled down.
“At the end of the day, I can only state the facts… Gallagher got up and his mouth didn’t shut up for at least five minutes to the referees, the linesmen, and to our bench,” Vigneault told reporters.
A reporter tried to give Alain Vigneault the chance to walk back his comments from yesterday. AV went full heel:
Bergevin can whine all he wants about the brevity of Niskanen’s punishment and Vigneault’s comments. He’s probably right. But, perhaps conveniently, he’s seemed to have forgotten about his team’s nonsense during the 2014 Conference Finals.
Vigneault had the last word when the Flyers eliminated the Canadiens with a 3-2 win in Game Six. But when it comes to 2014, you can be sure that Vigneault, one can bet, hasn’t forgotten.
Former New York Rangers’ head coach Alain Vigneault (Getty Images) /
Bad break for Stepan
Flashback to Game Three of the 2014 Conference Finals. Former Ranger Brandon Prust intentionally blindsided Stepan with a high and late hit, one totally unnecessary given that Stepan didn’t have the puck.
Prust was not penalized on the play but was subsequently suspended for two games by the NHL, which called it interference and added the supplemental discipline for “extreme lateness” and “significant head contact from the way it was delivered.”
Unlike Niskanen’s cross-check on Gallagher, which came in the heat of battle in the corner, Prust’s hit was plain dirty and out of nowhere.
“That incident, the four referees missed the call and Stepan is injured,” Vigneault told reporters after that game. “Late hit, everything that you want to get out of the game — that was [Prust’s] hit on Stepan.”
Stepan missed Game Four (won by the Rangers, 3-2, in overtime at Madison Square Garden) but returned for Game Five and scored twice in a 7-4 loss in Montreal.
At last check, Stepan was still waiting for his “get well” from Bergevin.
Chris Kreider crashes into Carey Price of the Montreal Canadiens in Game One of 2014 the Eastern Conference Finals in Montreal. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /
Montreal’s Public Enemy No. 1
Doesn’t matter that Rangers’ forward Chris Kreider was tripped by a Canadiens’ defenseman on a mini-breakaway, causing him to lose balance and fall. Doesn’t matter that Kreider was on his bottom by the time his momentum carried him into superstar goalie Carey Price, who suffered an injured right knee and missed the remainder of the series.
By the end of Game One of the 2014 Conference Finals, Kreider became the most wanted man in Montreal since Vito Rizzuto, head of the city’s Rizzuto Crime Family and boss of the Sicilian Mafia in Canada, who in died in 2013 of pulmonary problems in a city hospital before authorities could re-arrest him.
Canadien’s brass whined, too.
Prust told reporters Kreider’s collision with Price was “accidentally on purpose.”
And after Game Three, when asked about Prust’s hit on Stepan, Montreal head coach Michel Therrien said: “You know what? If there is a team that can understand the loss of a player, it’s us. We lost Carey Price in the first game of the series with the hit [by] Kreider when he hit Carey Price, and we felt frustrated at the time. We’re still frustrated not having our goalie, our number one most important player, because of those type of plays.”
The whining out of Montreal following Game One was so overbearing, the New York Post ran a full-page photo of the aftermath of Kreider’s collision on its back cover with the headline “Krei’ Babies”.
Montreal Canadiens’ GM Marc Bergevin. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /
Nobody wants to see any player injured, but it happens. Understandably, players, fans, and team officials will vent, sometimes publicly. That said, one team seems to always cry the loudest. Perhaps the NHL should create a statistic for whining percentage to confirm what many fans outside of Montreal already think.
