This series wasn't lost in Game 3 Monday night at Madison Square Garden. For the New York Rangers, it was lost in Los Angeles, where Alain Vigneault essentially told his team, "I don't trust you enough."
If there was one overriding criticism of Vigneault's seven winning-but-Cup-less years as coach in Vancouver, it was that he was too conservative when his teams got a lead—that he changed his team's style too much to the detriment of his skill players.
As Thomas Drance deftly pointed out at CanucksArmy.com, the Canucks had the NHL's third-best rating in the advanced statistic of "Fenwick Close" when trailing by a goal. When up by a goal, they were 11th-best. Similar numbers were found for the previous couple of years. Drance wrote:
What this suggests is that when the Canucks need to catch up on the scoreboard, they have the raw talent to be a super elite hockey club. But too often they deploy a conservative defensive shell when they're in the lead, and that conservatism is counter-productive. Alain Vigneault's conservatism on this end is like an NFL coach punting on fourth-and-one from the opponent's forty yard ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Adrian Dater
Alain Vigneault’s Conversative Ways Likely to Cost His Team Another Stanley Cup
June 10th, 2014 by Adrian Dater Leave a reply »
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