In the opening game of the Eastern Conference Final on Saturday, New York Rangers head coach Alain Vigneault did more than guide his team to victory. He unveiled his plan to win the entire series.
It started with a line shuffle.
Martin St. Louis has spent most of the postseason on the team’s top line, and it simply wasn’t working. Vigneault decided to go with a very different look.
In the place of a 5’8” veteran on the eve of his 40th birthday, the coach promoted Kevin Hayes, a 6’5”, 225-pound rookie who tallied 45 points in the regular season but had mostly been confined to a depth role during the playoffs.
That much we knew before the start of the game. What we didn’t know was how Vigneault would deploy his new-look lines.
The toughest minutes went to a line Vigneault didn’t touch. The trio of Derek Stepan, Chris Kreider and Jesper Fast was tasked with shutting down the Lightning’s red-hot “Triplets” line centered by Tyler Johnson. Just for good measure, Vigneault also had his top defence pairing (Ryan McDonagh and Dan ...
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Article written by Jonathan Willis
Rangers’ Coach Alain Vigneault’s Line Changes Show Blueprint to Win East Final
May 17th, 2015 by Jonathan Willis Leave a reply »
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