Wing’s the thing as AV looks at Hayes, Moore

It was inevitable that at some point Rangers coach Alain Vigneault was going to experiment, and so here it was on Saturday night in Newark, a preseason game against the Devils, when a couple of natural centers were playing on the wing.

Vigneault moved perennial fourthline pivot Dominic Moore out to left wing, and also moved secondyear forward Kevin Hayes out from his spot in the middle to a wing. With a glut of players in training camp who are most experienced down the middle, someone is going to have to move to make room.

“We’ve got some important decisions to make here going forward,” Vigneault said, “and that’s what we’re going to try to do for the betterment of the team.”

Hayes played some on the wing during his rookie season, but excelled when he was what Vigneault described as “a big thirdline center that can be effective offensively and defensively.” The coach also had a couple choice words for how the 23yearold Boston College product had played thus far in camp.

“He’s going on the wing, and I’m expecting more from his game so far,” Vigneault said. “I understand it’s training camp, but Kevin needs to pick up his play a little bit. So [Saturday] we’re going to try him on the wing, see what he can bring.”

As for Moore, Vigneault used the example of Brian Boyle, who two years ago switched from center to wing and was a big contributor in the team’s run to the Stanley Cup final before moving on and signing a freeagent deal with the Lightning.

With the retirement of Martin St. Louis, the Rangers lost one of their four alternate captains. Vigneault spoke to his captain, Ryan McDonagh, about it, and the plan is just to keep the ‘ A’ to three players — Derek Stepan, Marc Staal and Dan Girardi.

“At this time, and I’ve talked to Mac about this early on before training camp started, and I don’t feel the need to [add another alternate captain], and I don’t think he does either — at this time,” Vigneault said. “But we talked about letting training camp unfold and seeing what happens. But my first response was no.”

Vigneault planned on making another round of cuts after Saturday’s game, and getting his training camp roster down to “under 30” for Monday’s Garden match against the Flyers.