PITTSBURGH – Alain Vigneault has seen an injury like Henrik Lundqvist’s once before. The Rangers coach can’t place the last time he saw a hockey player’s stick poke a goalie in the eye through his mask, but Vigneault did remember his reaction when he first saw it happen.
“I do remember asking myself at the same time, like, how can a stick go through that little hole there?” Vigneault said Tuesday morning at the team hotel in Pittsburgh.
In other words, the 15th winningest coach in NHL regular season history has the same question that every fan sitting on their couch had when Rangers defenseman Marc Staal’s stick inadvertently poked its blade into Lundqvist’s right eye in the first period of Wednesday night’s 5-2 Game 1 loss to the Penguins:
