It has been more than just the play-making ability from Jimmy Vesey that has been impressive in his first NHL postseason. It also has been how he hasn’t backed down from the physical Canadiens, before or after the whistle, as his team had a chance to finish off the series with a Game 6 victory on Saturday night at the Garden.
“I feel like I’m at my best when I’m engaged,” Vesey said Saturday morning. “With the physicality and the stuff after the whistle, you have no choice but to be into the game. I think just after that first game, my confidence has gone up every game in this series.”
Vesey went back to his first shift in Game 1, when his line with Rick Nash and Derek Stepan got in on the forecheck and he made a quick pass to Nash for a scoring chance. From there, it only has gotten better, as he made a great play along the wall to set up Nash in Game 5 in Montreal, when Nash’s shot was stopped by goalie Carey Price, but Brady Skjei put home the rebound to tie the game, 2-2.
“I think me, Step and Nasher, [in Game 5], we were close with a lot of chances,” Vesey said. “We got one from Brady, but I think we’re really making plays and we’re very close to breaking out.”
When Vesey signed with the Rangers as a free agent out of Harvard this summer, the Rangers knew they were getting a talented kid who was the reigning Hobey Baker Award winner as the best player in college hockey. Though most others thought he was just skilled, the Rangers knew they were getting a player with a little bit of grit.
“I’ve always thought he’s playing with an edge,” coach Alain Vigneault said. “The feedback that we got from our scouts who watched him and the guys that tried to convince him to come here was that he was a big-time player. He was good in the big games and the big moments. And he certainly had a good start to his first playoffs.”
Chris Kreider mostly had been absent through the first four games of the series, and the same could be said for the beginning of Game 5. But he turned it on in the third period and in the overtime, setting up the game-winner from Mika Zibanejad in the extra frame.
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“I would say in the last 15 minutes of the third and the overtime, Chris Kreider was back,” Vigneault said of his Game 5 performance. “He skated well, he got a real good chance on the rush and that line had some real good zone time. He stayed with it. Sometimes you fight through certain situations. He stayed with it and he got a bounce on the goal because he worked real hard.”
Asked where he was before he was “back,” Vigneault punted.
“That’s a good question to ask him,” he said.
Montreal coach Claude Julien said his team would be without rugged forward Andrew Shaw for Game 6, and that he was “day-to-day” with an undisclosed injury. Shaw had been a force for the Canadiens in the first five games, throwing big hits, getting to the front of the net and getting into a fight with Brendan Smith in Game 5.
Shaw was set to be replaced by Brian Flynn.
The Rangers continued saying their power play was “due” after it had gone 0-for-14 in the first five game of the series.
“You need your special teams to produce and get it done,” Derek Stepan said. “Our power play hasn’t been able to score a goal, but I look at it as a great opportunity to break through.”
Defenseman Kevin Klein and forward Tanner Glass were set to remain healthy scratches for the third straight game.