Yes, I know it is the past, but this incompetent, arrogant snake of a person managed to force the entire NYR franchise in a rebuild when it didn't need to, I think the discussion is still pretty relevant, especially since that angst need to be cleared for the record.
His kindergarten, idiotic man-to-man/ zone cover defense that left goals open on the weak side like taking candy from children, what more do you need? Oh, there's more apart from that leaking wreckage. Much more.
Once you got into the playoffs and teams could really read your game, not only did they realize the plan for scoring against you was: 1) Dump the puck 2) Win a puck battle 3) Pass the puck to the open man by the net AND 2) Stop the stretch pass through the neutral zone. Done. Vigneault's team loses.
So not only was he a highly flawed coach in terms of strategy. No, I'm being too kind, he was a JOKE of a coach for coaching in the highest hockey "sports league". He favoured his pair of useless veterans to the end of it and neglected development of younger players. He was terrible at it. And once he got the defenseman who knew how to move the puck, he benched them and made them watch forwards play the point on the PP.
He was f***ing sadistic in the glory of his own image of being a "genjus". He was great at getting the least out of his players as possible. And when the castle failed he not only called out future HHOF goalie Lundqvist in the media for being the reason the team failed. He was fired weeks after that in astonishment btw if you can't remember. He also called out many others, personally, despite from making it sure he was the ginjus.
He was a smug face shit head. But here comes the WORST part: He tricked the NYR management they needed a rebuild when they didn't. NYR gave away McD, Miller, Hayes, Pionk, Skjei, Zuccarello, etc, for basically nothing in return. It was a robbery. I'm not advocating trading. But you don't give solid players away for nothing. NYR did.
IF NYR would've told Vigneault: "No, you're an incompetent idiot, bye", sure, the team wouldn't have Kakko and those insignificant picks. But they possibly could've kept ALOT of elite players still on the team. If not for the rebuild, NYR could've potentially been a power house.
As for the long run? If you always aim for the long run, you're never in the window. All in all, I just want to say I really think Alain "smug face" Vigneault is one of the worst dinsosaur coaches in the NHL and he altered the entire future of the team. Now the cup window is just in weird angles that doesn't work.
