It isn’t just a matter of Alain Vigneault trusting his veterans. No, it is more than that.
It is the Rangers coach trusting himself and his instincts, with 1,109 games and 547 victories from behind an NHL bench probably constituting a substantial enough mass of evidence that he is correct to do so.
And so his answer to the question — following Monday’s 6-3 victory over the Sabres that sent the Blueshirts into the All-Star break on an 8-5-1 rebound run — about whether Dylan McIlrath would get more time in the second half of the season (presumably in place of Dan Boyle) was Vigneault being Vigneault.
“You’ve got to play your lineup,” said Vigneault, who has had Boyle in the lineup for 42 of the club’s 49 games. “You’ve got to play your best players, and your best players have to be your best.”
Let’s stipulate this: The Boyle-McIlrath matter, while a flashpoint because it is the most significant lineup decision confronting the coach and because it has trade-deadline ramifications applying to Keith Yandle, isn’t the most critical issue the somehow-seventh-overall Blueshirts must overcome if they’re going to be more than a second-half paper tiger.
Dan Girardi, whom Vigneault continues to entrust with top-pair matchup responsibility, must become a semblance of his old self. Rick Nash needs to produce. Chris Kreider must exert some influence on the game. Kevin Hayes has to contribute in a much more meaningful way.
So critically do centers 1A and 1B, Derick Brassard and Derek Stepan. Brassard has been way too erratic despite his club-leading 36 points (17-19) while having gone pointless in 25 of his 48 games, and Stepan hasn’t looked the same since returning in late December from broken ribs.
Let’s stipulate this as well: Sitting McIlrath in favor of Boyle is not the equivalent of scratching young Tomas Kloucek in order to play Igor Ulanov, as then-coach Ron Low did (with the advice and consent of then-general manager Glen Sather) in 2001-02.
Trusting veterans is Vigneault’s way. He has implicit faith in guys who have been there and done that. Maybe the best equivalent to Boyle this year is the way the coach continued to deploy Marty St. Louis, Boyle’s 2004 Cup-winning teammate at Tampa Bay, in critical spots in the playoffs a year ago, even though the future Hall of Fame winger’s game was in steep decline.
Vigneault clearly can get points across, but he chooses to do so behind closed doors. He is a carrot guy rather than a stick guy. When he believes in you, he believes in you. He does not believe in benching players, let alone sitting them out, until there is absolutely no recourse.
Exhibit A: Hayes, whom the coach did not scratch until Game 38 despite a demonstrable lack of urgency in the sophomore’s game this year from the get-go.
Different horses for different courses. John Tortorella, Vigneault’s immediate predecessor here, also had trust in himself and his instincts. Yet he was a bench-first, ask-questions-later kind of coach as Brandon Dubinsky, Michael Del Zotto and Marian Gaborik most certainly can attest.
Vigneault would just as soon appear unkempt in front of the cameras as embarrass a player as a motivational tool — as, say, Tortorella did when he benched former Canadien Chris Higgins upon the winger’s first visit back to Montreal on Oct. 24, 2009, after a bad penalty late in the second period.
Interestingly enough, Higgins became a Tortorella favorite and go-to guy in the room both as a Ranger before his trade to the Flames later that season and again as a Canuck when the player and coach were reunited in Vancouver in 2013-14.
So, different ways. Vigneault has left the room to his players through this challenging season just as he did through his first year and through last year’s charge to the President’s Trophy.
It represents part of the belief system of this coach, as self-assured as any ever to come down the pike to Broadway.
He, like the crooner who hailed from Hoboken and sang about New York, New York, does it his way.