When Alain Vigneault was behind the bench, Rangers defensemen had the mandate to move the puck as quickly as possible in the Point A-to-Point-B approach that a transporter such as Dan Boyle found restrictive and moaned about all the time.
This year’s corps of mobile defensemen always seems to have its collective head up while looking to move the puck decisively. Think Jacob Trouba’s headman pass that sprung Mika Zibanejad down the middle on Thursday against the Jets and Adam Fox’s feed up the right wing to Artemi Panarin that ignited No. 93’s highlight-reel goal and exchange with Pavel Buchnevich.