PAVEL ROUSER
Rangers looking for more from benched Buchnevich
There is very little reason to lose composure over the fact coach Alain Vigneault decided second-year winger Pavel Buchnevich was the correct player to sit in the final game before the five-day bye week, a 2-1 loss to the Western Conference-leading Golden Knights in Las Vegas on Sunday night.
But it is curious Vigneault, a coach who predicates his philosophy on the speed and skill of all four lines, would sit his third-highest scorer, even if Buchnevich had been suspect in his 200foot game over the past week — if not longer. The 22-year-old Russian is surely one of the most talented players on the roster, with 11 goals and 26 points through his 41 games.
But Vigneault needs more from him when the Rangers return from the break with Saturday afternoon’s Garden match against the Islanders, just as he needs a more competitive nature from almost everyone not named Henrik Lundqvist. So there is no reason to freak out over Vigneault’s non-answer concerning why he scratched Buchnevich for the first time this season.
“I just felt that for tonight, it was the right thing to do,” he said, since before the game he didn’t know whether Mats Zuccarello was going to play, having missed Saturday’s desultory 2-1 shootout win over the league-worst Coyotes with an illness. But Zuccarello was able to go Sunday, and when Vigneault was pushed on why Buchnevich was the odd man out, he again sidestepped bashing his talented young winger.
“Just analyzing our different lines,” he said, “and I wasn’t sure if Zuccy was going to play, so I just felt for tonight, it was the right thing to do.”
The question going forward is who will come out when Buchnevich goes back in. Despite being sent back to AHL Hartford on Monday, it’s hard to see rookie Vinni Lettieri being an easy mark, with his blistering one-timer with seven seconds left in regulation on Sunday destined for the top corner and a tie game before it hit the butt end of Marc-Andre Fleury’s goal stick. Even Paul Carey has been one of the most engaged (and productive) wingers on the team since he started playing regularly in mid-November.
Fact is, the loss of winger Chris Kreider to a blood clot and subsequent rib surgery, set to keep him out at least two months, is a blow not just to the Rangers’ talent, but to their collective competitiveness. It is a domino effect when they start losing one-on-one battles, as arguably their most mercurial competitor, Mika Zibanejad, explained Sunday night.
“You get a little anxious when you try to get something going,” Zibanejad said. “Guys don’t want to turn the puck over, it’s just one of those things that [comes] with frustration. I don’t know if anxious is the right word, but trying to get something going by doing something by yourself, and that’s when the mental breakdown comes out by the way of a turnover.”
This is not just a matter up-front, either, as Vigneault found it necessary for another wake-up call for defenseman Brendan Smith, who has done little thus far to justify the confidence shown by general manager Jeff Gorton when he rewarded him this summer with a four-year, $17.4 million contract, carrying an annual salary-cap hit of $4.35 million. Vigneault replaced him with Steven Kampfer, saying, “I wanted to get Kampf in here for some time. Back-to-back nights, I just wanted to get him in the lineup.”
And Kampfer played a very straightforward game while paired with Marc Staal in a defensive role that was at least not a liability for turnovers every time they were on the ice. The player that Smith was in the playoffs last season has yet to reemerge with any consistency, and the Rangers need him, just as much as they need Kevin Shattenkirk to be the threat he can prove to be, the kind that earned him the discounted fouryear, $26.6 million deal with an annual cap hit of $6.65 million.
If Gorton thinks this team can make a postseason run in this season of revival for Lundqvist, then there needs to be more desire shown from the players on the roster right now before any tradedeadline additions are even thought of. Now they all have a week to think about it, and a rest is surely needed.
“I think right now, everybody’s got to re-energize,” Vigneault said. “When we get back to work, every day and every game is a hard-fought game.”