Examining Alain Vigneault’s Tenure with the New York Rangers

How Alain Vigneault’s tenure with the New York Rangers compares to his current situation with the Philadelphia Flyers.

This past Monday, the Philadelphia Flyers found their new Head Coach in Alain Vigneault. Most Flyers fans should be familiar with the 57-year-old coach due to his time with New York Rangers, where he reached the Stanley Cup Finals once but ultimately lost.

At the moment, Philadelphia isn’t desirable, to be honest. The team has many questions in key positions and with a regression year for Shayne Gostisbehere and Ivan Provorov, the team will need a new direction. Chuck Fletcher was handed a team that was headed to the top of the lottery of which they turned around only to fall flat in the comeback to the playoffs.

This is new territory for Vigneault from his last coaching job in New York. We all know that in sports you are only as good as your last appearance, and Vigneault, of course, fell off with the Rangers at the end of the 2017-18 season. Back in 2013 when Vigneault was brought into New York, he took over a completely different team than the current one in Philadelphia. When he took the reigns of New York’s coaching staff, the Rangers were coming off a loss in the conference semi-finals, and it was a team consisting of a prime Ryan Callahan, a 24-year-old Carl Hagelin, Henrik Lundqvist, and oh, a top goal scorer in Rick Nash. It would be an understatement to say these teams aren’t similar, which brings concern for Vigneault.

Is he going to be the coach that can go through losing seasons? During his time in New York, he only missed the playoffs once, which was in his last year with the team. The Flyers have a lot of growing to do, and also still need to find their next bonafide NHL stars for the next generation. Vigneault had more young stars in the making when he arrived with the Rangers. The Flyers don’t have the luxury of possessing a top pick to work with, either. Instead, two of the Flyers in-division rivals (Rangers and Devils) have top picks to almost immediately bolster their team. So, the development side of Vigneault is going to have to show since guys like Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee aren’t on the level of a Jack Hughes or Kaapo Kakko.

Something recent should get fans excited, though, as the eight seeded Columbus Blue Jackets swept the President Trophy winning Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the playoffs. That just goes to show that anything can happen in hockey, and maybe that’s the Flyers next year with Vigneault behind the bench. He’ll have his work cut out for him, though.