With the Rangers top heavy, Alain Vigneault needs to adapt

Regardless of their current record, the Rangers have a lot of passengers at present – quite a few players need to improve beyond just the four we discussed yesterday. If we were being critical, how much of the solid yet unspectacular record the Rangers currently have is the product of Rick Nash’s season (so far) and Henrik Lundqvist’s December hot streak? You can argue core players such as Chris Kreider, Ryan McDonagh, and others need to be better, but you can also reasonably suggest Alain Vigneault needs to change as well.

Most elite players (goaltending aside) around the league are ridden by their head coaches: Double shifted, out on the ice as much as reasonably possible. Sure, at times John Tortorella rode his star players too much, which can be counterproductive but consider this: Amongst the top-30 goal scorers in the league, Rick Nash sits just 19^th in ice time. Nash is definitely not playing too much.

Those with less ice time than Nash included Tampa’s Kucherov, Gustav Nyquist and Tomas Tatar in Detroit, and Max Pacioretty of Montreal – players on clubs who, arguably, all ice more balanced and deeper line-ups than the Rangers do up front. All three clubs certainly have more than two settled lines, which is all the Rangers have at the moment. Given the way the Islanders fourth line outworked the Rangers on Tuesday, are the Rangers losing games because they haven’t got the depth they require?

Given the current state of flux in the Rangers’ bottom six, Alain Vigneault should be able to recognise what represents his best chance of immediate success even if that means in the short term he cannot stick to his four line approach. What this should mean is more ice time for Rick Nash.

While Nash’s shooting percentage has slowly started to come back down to earth, prior to the Canadiens game Thursday night Nash had only played over 17 minutes twice in his last six games. Needless to say he only scored in one of those games – the two-goal, game winning contribution in Pittsburgh. Over his last ten games, Nash has had less than 17 minutes ice time five times and only once did he make the box score in those five games. Any way you cut it, an average of around 17 and a half minutes per game is pretty low for an elite player.

Of course, this is a very simplistic point of view. Not everything comes down to ice time but it’s also a pretty solid trail of thought; you rely on your best players, they are often the ones who decide games and the more that Nash is on the ice, surely the better the team’s chance of success. Remember Nash was among league leaders last year in game winning goals despite all the time he missed and despite a “just”  26 goal season. When a player is having the kind of season Nash has had so far, why wouldn’t you go back to the well as much as possible?

AV cannot decide on his best bottom six configuration. That’s on him to sort out sooner rather than later. Last season it took until late January for a settled line-up to emerge, but this year it appears to be taking longer, something that may cost the Rangers a higher position in the standings and a much trickier route in the playoffs. Alain Vigneault needs to recognise what offers him the best chance of catching the Pens and Isles. He needs to play Rick Nash more.