There hasn’t been a lot of bright spots for the Rangers, as they bring a 2-6-2 record into the Garden on Thursday night to take on old pal Derek Stepan and the winless Coyotes.
Someone is going to have to come out victorious.
But as Rangers coach Alain Vigneault has made it clear his whole team needs to play better, he has pointed to his line of Jimmy Vesey, Kevin Hayes and Jesper Fast as doing the type of hard work that is needed to get out of such a horrid early-season funk.
“That line has been real effective because of the competitiveness and the hard work that they’ve put in,” Vigneault said after practice Wednesday. “We need that from everybody. Simplify is a word that we have been using. Getting pucks to the net and getting on the right side of their checks, and that line has certainly been doing that for us.”
The Blueshirts have gotten in this hole by often opting to try the difficult play rather than the simple one. It happens more often than not in a game’s first five minutes. They’ve given up the first goal of the game three times on the first shot against and three times on the third shot, having been down 1-0 within the first 2:40 five times.
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But the line of two Boston guys (Vesey and Hayes) and a Swedish workhorse (Fast) has matched up against the opposition’s top line in each of the past three games and have not only done a stout job defensively, but created offense as well.
“I think anytime you’re going against a top line, you have to play an honest game or you’re going to get burned,” Vesey told The Post. “We’ve been taking pride in that definitely. So far it’s been good, and hopefully we can keep it going.”
Now in his second season since signing as a ballyhooed free agent out of Harvard, Vesey has taken it upon himself to be more physical. He said the coaching staff reminded him to finish his checks before the Islanders game Oct. 19, then he went out and almost got into two fights while tying Fast with a team-high five hits.
“That’s part of his repertoire,” Vigneault said. “If he doesn’t bring that, he’s not the player that he can be. He’s a good skater, he’s a power forward. He’s got to get in there, play the body, play the man when the opportunity is there. He’s doing that more since I put him on that line.”
Coming out of college as the Hobey Baker Award winner, Vesey was touted for his two-way game. But physicality wasn’t always at the forefront of his mind, not when he was the best player not only on his team, but in all of college.
“I see myself as a power forward,” Vesey said. “Just in college, I played so many minutes it wears you down and takes a lot out of you to make those hits. I think I’ve always had it. Last year was kind of a feeling-out process. Definitely got it for the playoffs. I’m going to try to keep that in my game for sure.”
The biggest hope for the Rangers is that the play of that line can help inspire the rest of the team, which has been nothing but lackluster from the top down. And though Vigneault had previously said he didn’t want to name names, he began doing just that by mentioning captain Ryan McDonagh, along with Mats Zuccarello, Marc Staal, Rick Nash and both goaltenders needing to bring an ‘A’ game, starting Thursday.
“We need our top players to be on top of their game,” Vigneault said. “If we do that, then we’re going to be in good shape.”