Vigneault shakeup pays off
THE Rangers did not play their best game on Monday night in Columbus, but they did pull out a win in just another example of how crucial their depth up front can be, players with skill capable of making a game-changing play in an instant.
At the end of the night Alain Vigneault was pleased with the 3-2 victory particularly because his team was able to escape town with a win when some players were having off nights.“We had a few of our guys maybe not having their top game, and usually that’s the sign of a good team when you can win a game even when you’re not really at your best as far as execution,” Vigneault said after the win, his club’s sixth straight. “It’s not a bad sign.”
Vigneau lt took juggled lines into Monday’s game, but he ultimately ended up with the ones he had used for the last week, and the changes started after the first period. Citing matchups against the Blue Jackets’ lines, Vigneault decided to move Pavel Buchnevich up with Mika Zibanejad and Rick Nash while reunited the Chris Kreider-Derek Stepan-Mats Zuccarello trio and dropping Jimmy Vesey to the fourth line, where he has spent time previously this season.
During the first intermission Vigneault decided to swap rookies Vesey and Buchnevich, and in the third he then switched Stepan and Zibanejad to reform the lines he used the previous three games, leaving the Michael Grabner-Kevin Hayes-J.T. Miller combination intact.
The adjustments paid off as the Rangers, who next play the Islanders on Thursday, made a push in the third, highlighted by Vesey’s game-winning goal with 6:32 left, just his second point in 17 games. “I thought early on Jimmy was skating well. I thought he was skating better than (Buchnevich,) so I just made the switch early, and it worked out for us,” Vigneault said.
Vesey took a Stepan pass up the right flank, made a strong move to get by David Savard and managed to fire forehand to beat Sergei Bobrovsky. Over his first 10 games Vesey had nine points, and he had 17 points through 29 games. His goal Monday was his fourth point in his last 26 games.