One of former New York Rangers’ head coach Alain Vigneault’s biggest problems was the way he deployed players night after night. The former head coach would make lineup decisions without ever explaining himself and leaving it up to everyone else to figure out what was going on.
One of Vigneault’s favorite targets was Pavel Buchnevich who spent a significant amount of time in the bottom six even though his skill set was not suited for that role. On the other hand, one of the players Vigneault praised the most was Jesper Fast, a reliable bottom-six player.
However, when this became a problem when, last season, Fast started replacing Buchnevich on the first line with Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad.