When you make a decision on a coach, you’d better be right. When you make a decision on a coach, you’d better think more about the future than the past.
There is no way to know how Jeff Gorton, the Rangers’ first-year general manager, feels about the job coach Alain Vigneault did in 2015-16, and it’s doubtful he feels it was poor enough to make a change.
It most certainly wasn’t good enough, especially the whimper of a first-round exit that exemplified all the short-comings the Rangers had from October through April.
There was a column in the Vancouver Sun, shortly after Vigneault was fired by the Canucks in 2013, that pointed out how that team nose-dived after Vigneault took it to the Stanley Cup Final in 2011.
Click here to read that column.
In it were some similarities to what happened here, most notably the lack of 60-minute efforts throughout his final season.
This is the most disturbing trend the Rangers developed this season: not playing the whole game, appearing mentally unprepared mentally (not technically) at starts, unable to close with leads, coming unglued quickly, and worst of all, gliding, not working nearly hard enough … and that being acceptable and accepted.
It was noted (opined) that he failed to develop some young players that year – as he did with some players here – but those players eventually proved to be marginal. Here he has developed, with debatable measures, J.T. Miller and Jesper Fast, and hasn’t had a lot of success this season with Kevin Hayes, Oscar Lindberg, and all-but-buried Dylan McIlrath.
But his personnel decisions – with the young players, and those involving vets like Tanner Glass, Dan Boyle, Keith Yandle, Dan Girardi – aren’t nearly enough of a reason to make a change. That so many went backward, and so few, other than Miller, got better, is.
No, the biggest failures this season were the inability – by Vigneault and his bench assistants Scott Arniel and Ulf Samuelsson – to fix the chaotic man-to-man defensive-zone play, the mostly lousy power play, and the consistently terrible penalty kill. It’s entirely possible Vigneault’s staff will have a different look if he stays.
Was it a matter of personnel? Did too many soldiers from the previous four playoff seasons – who played the equivalent of a full, but much harder, regular season – simply break down, decline, or worse? Is it even possible to play a defensive system when there are so many forwards with limited defensive instincts or abilities (Chris Kreider, Miller, Derick Brassard, Mats Zuccarello, Hayes)? And with a defense that includes the deteriorating Girardi and Boyle?
Gorton has to decide what went wrong, and why, and if a change is needed. Or if the current coach can fix it.
But, it is extremely dangerous to oust a coach, because there’s no guarantee a better guy replaces him. Certainly Vancouver’s been a mess since he left, with multiple coaches, including John Tortorella. Pittsburgh fired Dan Bylsma and went south before it fired his replacement and eventually hired Mike Sullivan.
And other teams, such as Anaheim with Bruce Boudreau, came close to pulling the trigger, then benefited by not pulling it. Some, like San Jose, pulled the trigger and it worked. The Rangers pulled the trigger on Tortorella, and Vigneault immediately took them to the Stanley Cup Final, a Presidents’ Trophy, and a Game 7 of the Eastern Final with four injured defensemen.
Vigneault, with his tremendous resume, didn’t forget how to coach over the short off-season. Did he? You don’t fire a coach to punish him for a bad season. That’s not good business.
You’d better be careful, also, because often a new coach means you start over, and the core of this Rangers team doesn’t scream for a rebuild, even if that, with the salary cap and the no-trade clauses and questionable contracts, was remotely possible. It isn’t.
Nor is this the time for that. Is it time for a new voice? Maybe. Is it time for more accountability among the players? Absolutely. Do the Rangers’ special teams, and the way they play around the front of their own net, need to go in a different direction? Obviously.
Tortorella was kicked out of here by Glen Sather, after doing almost as much with much less talent, after a players revolt because he was too tough. We have no idea how these players feel about this coach, or if they need a change. And if there is a change, if it needs to go back in the other direction, to another tough-guy, demanding coach.
Gorton’s a smart guy. He won’t make an emotional decision in the wake of the first-round debacle. But whatever decision he makes about Vigneault, he’d better be right.
More than being right about what happened this season, he’d better be right about next year.
Twitter: @RangersReport.
Photos by the Associated Press.
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