Wonder what Patrick Roy thinks about this.
Any time first-year Rangers defenseman Nick Holden’s name had been brought up this season, coach Alain Vigneault would reference the heaping praise he heard from Roy, who had coached Holden with the Avalanche before this summer’s trade brought the blueliner to Broadway.
But after a sustained slump that carried over into the first two games of the postseason, Vigneault finally decided to make Holden a healthy scratch for the first time all year, benching the lefty in favor of righty Kevin Klein in the team’s 3-1 loss to the Canadiens in Game 3 of their first-round series Sunday night at the Garden.
“I thought right-handed, left-handed might make it easier for us as far as moving the puck,” Vigneault said after his team went down 2-1 in the best-of-seven series. “We didn’t start with the puck very much in the first two periods, and we had a lot of turnovers. You have to manage the puck well against a team like this and we’re not doing it well enough right now.”
Holden suffered his biggest moment of indignity near at the end of regulation in Game 2. That’s when he broke his stick on an attempted slash in front, and then was unable to properly defend as Tomas Plekanec tied the game with 17.3 seconds remaining. The Canadiens would go on to win in overtime.
Klein had battled through a late-season back ailment that kept him out a month, but he played the six final games of the regular season before being scratched for Games 1 and 2. He played 18:15 and had four recorded giveaways while on the third pair with rookie Brady Skjei on Sunday.
Brendan Smith moved up to skate with Marc Staal, while Ryan McDonagh stayed with Dan Girardi.
Vigneault threw out a bit of subterfuge in pregame warm-ups, rushing completely different lines than in the first two games, with J.T. Miller down with the fourth line. But he ended up starting the game with the same combinations as they had been, with Miller alongside Michael Grabner and Kevin Hayes.
At the start of the third, with almost no offense being generated, Vigneault did make some big switches.
He put Jesper Fast on the right with Chris Kreider and Derek Stepan, made up a Rick Nash-Kevin Hayes-Mats Zuccarello line, and sprinkled in Jimmy Vesey-Oscar Lindberg-Miller as well as Grabner-Mika Zibanejad-Tanner Glass.
Goaltender Magnus Hellberg was called up from AHL Hartford after the Wolf Pack’s season ended on Saturday. Hellberg started his first NHL game in the Rangers’ regular-season finale on April 9, collecting his first win. When it was clear that regular backup Antti Raanta was going to be fine after suffering a bone bruise to his right knee, Hellberg was sent back to Hartford to finish the season.
The 26-year-old, 6-foot-6 Swede is expected to be the third goalie and not dress for games as long as Lundqvist and Raanta remain healthy.