Adam Cracknell, a healthy scratch for his third game with the Rangers on Saturday after having been claimed on waivers from Dallas on Oct. 9, returned to the lineup for Tuesday’s match at the Garden against the Penguins and did some solid blue-collar work in limited ice time.
Cracknell got 7:16 centering Michael Grabner and Pavel Buchnevich on a remade fourth unit as coach Alain Vigneault went with a traditional 12-forward, six-defensemen alignment in the 5-4 overtime loss after going with 11-and-7 in two of the previous three matches.
Vigneault said assistant coach Lindy Ruff, who was the head man behind the bench when Cracknell scored 10 goals and six assists in 69 games for the Stars a year ago, reported the 32-year-old, a 6-foot-2, 218-pounder, played the middle, “[Around] 50 percent of the time.”
“He’s used to playing center,” said Vigneault, who scratched Paul Carey up front for the second straight match. “He’ll be effective for us.”
Steven Kampfer was scratched on defense for the second straight game and fifth time in seven matches on the year while Nick Holden came out after having played four straight after sitting out the first two contests.
Back to last year’s playoffs, Tuesday marked the third straight time and fourth time in the past five matches that the Rangers yielded the tying goal in a five-on-six situation while attempting to protect a one-goal lead.
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Kevin Hayes, Mats Zuccarello and Rick Nash were the forwards, with Marc Staal and Kevin Shattenkirk the defensive pair, when Sidney Crosby banked in the tying goal off Henrik Lundqvist from below the goal line at 19:04 of the third period.
The Ryan McDonagh-Tony DeAngelo pair was on from 16:03 to 17:23, followed by the Brady Skjei-Brendan Smith tandem from 17:23 to 18:02. Staal and Shattenkirk got on at 18:02 and could not get off as the Penguins maintained control.
The Rangers, 1-5-1, became the second team in franchise history to earn fewer than four points in their first seven games. Only the 1959-60 Blueshirts, who finished 17-38-15 and out of the playoffs, had a start as equally bad or worse.
That was also the season in which the Rangers made their quickest coaching change, dismissing Phil Watson 15 games into the year at 3-9-3. General manager Muzz (Must Go) Patrick served as an interim coach for two games before hiring Alf Pike to take over. Pike lasted through the next season before Doug Harvey served as player-coach in 1961-62 while winning the Norris Trophy after coming over from Montreal that summer.
This marks Vigneault’s 16th season as an NHL head coach. His longevity was cited by a reporter asking a question about whether the coach had ever been in this kind of an early-season pickle.
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“Since I have been in the league such a long time, I have been through this before,” Vigneault said with a smile. “It’s not my first time; even my first year in New York the way we started off was a little bit challenging.”
Those 2013-14 Rangers opened 1-4 and were 3-7 through 10 games. The club was 16-18-2 as late as Dec. 20 before ramping it up to finish 45-31-6 and making a run to the Stanley Cup final.
Vigneault’s final two teams in Montreal got off to miserable starts. The 1999-2000 club opened 3-11-1 en route to a playoff miss at 35-34-13. The 2000-01 Habs broke out of the gate at 4-3-2, but upon reaching 5-13-2, Vigneault was dismissed.
Pavel Buchnevich, who scored the 2-2 goal at 8:32 of the second by wiring one from the high slot on the power play for his first goal of the season, played only 5:49 at even-strength. … Mika Zibanejad had eight shots on net. … Nash was held off the board despite creating a half-dozen golden opportunities around the net.