Brighton Breezy
New member
Unfortunately Walt this is a hallmark of Alain Vigneault coached teams. He tends to prefer small, soft and skilled players, though isn't adverse to utilizing a meathead goon in certain situations.
Even though I think that Coach Torts is a complete knob and his methods and tactics suspect, at least his teams played hard and competed. Vigneault's teams love to sucker other players into taking penalties through diving, cheating, etc, and win games on the power play. Vancouver came pretty close to a Stanley Cup in 2011 playing like this. Ugly to watch, it can be effective.
Personally I feel sorry for Ranger fans now as I don't think the vast majority of them are going to like the way he wants to play.
From what I have read on various US sports websites etc, Torts was very tough on his players almost every single day and you could see that to some extent with the way he at times struggled to get the best out of certain players on the Rangers' roster. I guess Gaborik would be an example. It seemed he didn't have a different approach for different players, rather a one size fits all disciplinarian style.
With Lundqvist in goal and a strong defensive roster of Girardi, Staa and McDonough as well as De Zotto they SHOULD have a good base from which to allow the likes of Nash and Richards to build on.
However, it seems to be much of Tortorella's relative success was built on strong forechecking and being tough in the corners, building pressure etc which has been abandoned. You can't change a style so drastically overnight.
Sather also needs to stop giving big contracts to players looking for a pay day to run down their careers on Broadway. Both Richards and Nash were signed past their peak.