Wednesday morning’s practice began with New York Rangers coach Alain Vigneault changing all four lines. In case that wasn’t enough to talk about, Vigneault then announced who would be starting in goal Wednesday night, and the social media frenzy was in full effect.
I’m sure the coaching staff of the New York Rangers were aware their announcement of the new lines for Wednesday night’s game against the Washington Capitals would draw some interest.
The announcement that Ondrej Pavelec would get the start over Henrik Lundqvist blew away everyone’s mind. You know what? It worked like a hockey good luck charm.
Matt Calamia tweeted the new lines the Rangers were going with for Wednesday night’s game. A total change from what the Rangers have used at any time this year.
It included Pavel Buchnevich starting on the fourth line.
All new #NYR lines:
Nash – Zibanejad- Zuccarello
Kreider – Desharnais- Vesey
Grabner – Hayes – Miller
Carey – Nieves – BuchnevichMcdonagh- Holden
Smith- Shattenkirk
Skjei – Staal— Matt Calamia (@MattCalamia) December 27, 2017
Alain Vigneault had a simple reason to why he changed the four lines. The Rangers were coming off three days without a practice and he felt the change was “to get everybody’s attention,” as was tweeted by Steve Zipay.
AV said the other changes are meant "to get eveybody's attention"
— Steve Zipay (@stevezipay) December 27, 2017
Well, Vigneault did get everyone’s attention as fans, bloggers and beat reporters were a little perplexed as to why such a drastic move was needed to get the players attention.
I'm sportin a mean egg nog hangover but am I reading this right https://t.co/kEMxRsLF9l
— HockeyStatMiner (@HockeyStatMiner) December 27, 2017
He is…. but AV is throwing everything into a blender. https://t.co/JUnTUhkHcN
— Sean Hartnett (@HartnettHockey) December 27, 2017
Even my on my Twitter page I was questioning why the new lines were needed.
#NYR Today’s lines at practice. Very confused why Buch is on the fourth line.
Nash-Zibanejad-Zuccarello
Grabner-Hayes-Miller
Kreider-Desharnais-Vesey
Carey-Nieves-BuchnevichMcDonagh-Holden
Smith-Shattenkirk
Skjei-Staal.— RangerProud (@RangerProud) December 27, 2017
After all of this early drama, a simple tweet from Matt Calamia was all it took to really get the people talking. Pavelec gets the start for #NYR tonight against the Caps.
Pavelec gets the start for #NYR tonight against the Caps.
— Matt Calamia (@MattCalamia) December 27, 2017
But through all of this drama, tweeting and outright complaining one thing was forgotten. Alain Vigneault doesn’t have to answer to anyone but James Dolan.
Vigneault may know what the hell he is doing. He has been changing lines around pretty much on a whim all season with some pretty good results.
It has helped to get the Rangers through the horrible start of 3-7-1. So why does everyone get into a frenzy about line changes and starting goalies? Vigneault changes lines throughout the games anyway. He even benches players for minutes at a time. You don’t believe me? That’s OK. Just ask Mika Zibanejad, Kevin Shattenkirk or perhaps Brendan Smith.
Regarding the goaltending, Hank had started 31 of the 36 games played this year. Its OK to use Pavelec at times. It’s what he is getting paid for. Should everyone still be questioning what the heck Vigneault is doing? Pavelec made 30 saves in Wednesday night’s 1-0 shutout, shootout victory. He also stopped T.J. Oshie and Alex Ovechkin in the shootout.
The coach really does know what he is doing.
People keep saying he should be fired, he is lost, how can he bench this one or that one? But what he does works most of the time. Is everything he does make sense? No, it doesn’t. I still don’t understand the way he uses Buchnevich, but I have no control over that anyway. As a matter of fact, Wednesday night’s game might have been the best the defense has looked at any time this season. That was with Shattenkirk’s struggle in his own end.
So, in conclusion of this so-called “the head coach is lost” syndrome, Alain Vigneault may make some crazy last minute changes. He changes lines faster than Michael Grabner flying down the ice on a breakaway. But … the man knows what he is doing to get his team to win hockey games.
So instead of all of us questioning his every decision prior to a game, maybe we all should wait and see what happens. You know know: maybe he will win a few of these games in the long run.