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New York Rangers: Who's the Better Coach; Tortorella or Vigneault?
On Saturday night, New York Rangers’ head coach Alain Vigneault defeated former Rangers’ head coach and current Columbus Blue Jackets head coach John Tortorella, while also coincidentally passing him for sole possession of 4th place on the Rangers’ all-time wins list. With that said, we look at each coach and decide who is the better of the two.
The New York Rangers took part in an amazing comeback last night in Columbus. After being down 4-1 midway through the second period, the team came back to defeat the Blue Jackets 5-4. This win was significant for a few reasons. For starters, and most importantly, the Rangers completed a huge four-point swing on the Metropolitan Division-leading Blue Jackets.
This game had a little bit more at stake for Alain Vigneault’s Rangers’ legacy. Vigneault took sole possession of 4th place on the New York Rangers’ all-time wins list with win number 172. Interestingly enough, the man who he passed on that list was coaching on the other bench.
With that being said, we thought it might be a fun idea if we were to compare the two coaches and to see if Alain Vigneault really is the better coach.
Handling of Veterans
In Tortorella’s tenure in New York, while he did have some veteran contribute in a big way
(Gaborik’s two 40 goal seasons, for instance), there were a lot more instances where he didn’t get his big guns to produce. There were the obvious tiffs with Gaborik in the non-40 goal seasons. The rapid decline of players, like Chris Drury and Wade Redden, among others, happened under his watch too.
In his first year as Rangers’ head coach, Alain Vigneault did a great job getting the most out of his veteran players. Rick Nash scored 26 goals in 65 games, Brad Richards managed to score 20 goals and total 51 points, Martin St. Louis was solid for a good year and a half before his rapid decline. All of this was along with the continued development of then veterans Derek Stepan, Ryan McDonagh, Chris Kreider and friends.
With that said, AV’s biggest crutch may be his over-reliance on his veterans. Just ask Dan Girardi. Whereas Torts would immediately bench a player after making one mistake, AV continuously will throw a player who made a mistake back on the ice, as long as he is a veteran.
Winner- Alain Vigneault–ever so slightly.
Score-AV 1, Torts 0
Handling of Rookies
This is an area where both coaches have struggled in the past. On the one hand, although he stifled a guy like Chris Kreider and hurt the development of Michael Del Zotto, Tortorella did help to spring Derek Stepan, Ryan McDonagh, Ryan Callahan, Brandon Dubinsky, among others into to strong NHL careers.
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Alain Vigneault has had more success with prospects, as Kreider, J.T. Miller, Kevin Hayes have broken out, and now Jimmy Vesey, Brady Skjei and potentially Pavel Buchnevich are on track to follow suit on his watch., AV’s one flaw here is, whereas Torts would bench anybody who made a mistake back in his heyday, Vigneault only seems to do this with his rookies/young players. Torts has proven to get a whole lot better with his rookie management over in Columbus, but for the purposes of this article, it doesn’t really matter.
Winner- Alain Vigneault–once again, ever so slightly.
Score- AV 2, Torts 0
Handling of the Media
Must I continue?
I will say this, though, Alain Vigneault gives nothing in his postgame interviews most of the time, but that’s partially the media’s fault for not asking him pressing questions often enough.
Winner- Alain Vigneault
Score- AV 3, Torts 0
Personnel Decisions
While John Tortorella was notorious for playing certain players for extremely minimal amounts of time per game, sometimes you have to wonder what Alain Vigneault is doing with the decisions he makes. Whether it be playing Dan Girardi first pair minutes or his love affair with Tanner Glass over the past few seasons to his continuous benching of young players after they make mistakes, Vigneault’s arrogance can be his own worst enemy. That is not to say Torts wasn’t bad in that regard as well, but Vigneault might be worse.
Winner- John Tortorella
Score- AV 3, Torts 1
Ability to Adapt
This is something that both of these coaches were horrible at, to say the least. It was Tortorella’s downfall in New York, and eventually, it will be Vigneault’s as well. Look at the playoffs last year. Once the Penguins figured out the Rangers scheme, Vigneault didn’t try to adjust. The defense was horrible all last year and so were the specialty teams, which both were never fixed.
Winner-The next coach to be hired.
Score- AV 3, Torts 1, Future Coach, 1
The Verdict
Both Alain Vigneault and John Tortorella are fine NHL coaches, but they each obviously have their flaws. You’d have to give AV the nod over Torts though based on the fact that he got the team to two Eastern Conference Finals and one Stanley Cup Final. Vigneault did have more to work with than Torts did in his tenure, sp that should be taken into account. At the end of the day, these coaches both had lots of good times in their years at the helm.
Hopefully, AV has one more great memory to be made in New York…
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