It should not have happened, but it did.
Alain Vigneault should not have “lost” Brendan Smith in the third period of Saturday’s stunning second-guess feast of a Game 2, 6-5 double-overtime defeat in Ottawa. But the coach on Sunday admitted that’s just what happened.
“I was looking for certain matchups and sometimes within a game’s flow, certain players get lost for a couple of minutes and that’s what happened,” Vigneault said when asked why No. 42 had gotten so little time in the third period. “It wasn’t performance-related. Brendan played a good game with bite. It just happened that way.”
Again. It should not have happened. Smith, who has played with an edge throughout the playoffs and had sparred repeatedly with Kyle Turris to the Rangers’ advantage throughout Game 2, somehow was on the ice for just two shifts and a combined 35 seconds over the final 12:48 of the third period as the match slipped away in shocking fashion.
Vigneault did not specify the matchups he was seeking — or seeking to avoid — but it’s difficult to figure that eight games into the tournament the coach still regards the Smith-Brady Skjei pair as his weakest tandem and thus the one to shelter. It is more difficult to figure that Smith seems ensconced as the third right defenseman regardless of his work or the comparative work of top-four righties Dan Girardi and Nick Holden.
And while this series is all about Tuesday’s Game 3, with the Blueshirts down 2-0 after losing Game 1 on a corner shot off the back of Henrik Lundqvist’s noggin with 4:11 to go and losing Game 2 in double overtime after holding their third two-goal lead of the match until 3:19 remained in regulation, there surely are ramifications for the way Smith is used and viewed by the coach.
Because the 28-year-old, who came to the Rangers from the Red Wings just before the deadline at the fair but not inexpensive cost of second- and third-round draft picks, is going to have his pick of the field when he hits the market as an unrestricted free agent on July 1. And you wonder if the way he is being used in the tournament will make it more difficult for the Blueshirts to keep him.
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OTTAWA — Alain Vigneault has often preached about the importance…
Vigneault is the equivalent of Terry Collins, the manager of the Mets, who gets no love from the fan base and is deemed responsible for essentially every loss while receiving minimal credit for taking flawed teams deep into the postseason, and in the Rangers coach’s case, more than once. The fans want someone else. They want anyone else. Good luck with that.
It was much the same for Vigneault as his tenure wound down in Vancouver, where he will forever be remembered as the coach who lost Game 7 to the Bruins in 2011 after his team had held leads of 2-0 and 3-2 in the Stanley Cup final. It is a defeat that hangs over Vigneault, maybe even haunts him. The Canucks were the more talented team. The perception always has been that the coach held his team back from responding to Boston’s bully tactics. Turns out that the perception is reality.
“Totally fair,” Alexandre Burrows, the Ottawa winger who played for those Canucks, told The Post. “We had the No. 1 power play in the league, and AV believed that our best chance to win was to play whistle to whistle, not get involved in that extra stuff that Boston was trying to drag us into and to make them pay with the PP.
“But our power play went dry. You know, our team there was a lot like the Rangers now, really good depth and great goaltending. He knows how to coach. I think at the end of the day, AV still believes in whistle to whistle.”
You bet he does. But Vigneault did not hold back the Rangers from taking pounds of flesh from the Canadiens in their physical battle royale in Round 1 and he is not holding back the Rangers here despite some wonky personnel decisions while shortening his bench Saturday.
I was predisposed to write that the Rangers have never once seemed in control through two games. But you know, they were up by two and had held the Senators to two shots on goal through the first 16:41 of the third period on Saturday. If Henrik Lundqvist had been himself, the series would be even, so how much piling on is appropriate here?
The Rangers should not have lost Game 2, but they did. Vigneault should not have lost Smith, but he did. Stuff happens. The series is not over.