Whether intentional or not, what Ryan McDonagh said was an indirect endorsement of his coach, Alain Vigneault — which is hard to come by now that these Rangers are 3-7-2 after another horrid first period resulted in a 5-4 loss to the Canadiens on Saturday night in Montreal.
“There’s good energy in here when we go through our meetings, and there’s good talk,” McDonagh said after the game, when he was the team’s harshest critic in a locker room that had very few players willing to answer for another desultory performance. “We’ve had the same lines and same ‘D’ pairs here for a few games, so that’s not an excuse.