OTTAWA — Alain Vigneault has often preached about the importance of depth in the playoffs, but he surely didn’t live that way in Game 2.
The Rangers coach shortened his bench at the start of the third period, and kept it that way until his team lost to the Senators, 6-5, in double-overtime on Saturday afternoon at Canadian Tire Centre. The loss put the Blueshirts in a 2-0 hole in the best-of-seven series going into Game 3 at the Garden on Tuesday night.
Rookie forward Pavel Buchnevich got just one shift after the second period ended, and that was with the Rangers on a power play. His 5:46 of total ice time was only more than Oscar Lindberg, the center who got 5:07 total and none after the third period.
“I felt at the time that had a couple guys that were playing pretty good,” coach Alain Vigneault said, “and I just thought it was the right thing to do.”
Vigneault apparently saw the difference after the first period, when he juggled his lines. He put Mats Zuccarello up with the Chris Kreider-Mika Zibanejad duo, added J.T. Miller to Derek Stepan and Rick Nash, while putting Michael Grabner on the left with Kevin Hayes and Jesper Fast.
That also left limited ice time for rookie winger Jimmy Vesey, who got just three shifts in the first overtime and finished with a total of 16:54.
With two days between Games 2 and 3, the Rangers will have an off day on Sunday then a practice in New York on Monday. They’re hoping the extra time won’t be spent sulking, but rather “purging” this loss from their memory, as captain Ryan McDonagh put it.
“Maybe it’s good we have a couple days in between here,” defenseman Dan Girardi added. “Maybe stay away from the rink [Sunday], relax, get our heads right on Monday and use our crowd to our advantage on Tuesday.”
The Rangers were hoping to be more disciplined than they were in Game 1, when they took four penalties. It didn’t start that way, as they took three penalties in the opening 10:18 of the game.
Yet that blow was softened by the fact that Michael Grabner scored a short-handed goal just 4:16 into the game, and Derek Stepan would add another short-handed goal later in the second period.
“We started off by giving them three power plays, but we made some adjustments,” Vigneault said. “We were all right, played a strong game, but just came up short.”
The Rangers outscored the Senators 3-1 in the second period, and they’re now outscored their opponents 10-3 in the middle frame of the postseason.