After dressing seven defensemen in Sunday’s win over Montreal, Vigneault has elected to go back to a regular six man unit, pushing Tony DeAngelo out of the line-up, and keeping Brendan Smith out of the line-up as a healthy scratch for the second straight game.
As a result of the changes, Marc Staal has been promoted to play alongside Ryan McDonagh, with Kevin Shattenkirk remaining paired with Brady Skjei, and a third pairing of Nick Holden and Steven Kampfer.
To be fair Smith looked out of sorts in the first two games, and DeAngelo is still yet to play 50 NHL games. Vigneault has also traditionally stayed with his winning combinations, so perhaps is rewarding Holden and Kampfer for the result against Montreal as much as anything.
Re-signed over the offseason, Smith was expected to bring an element to the Rangers game that had been missing for some time. He looked good in the postseason last year, when playing with Skjei, but with Shattenkirk also looking over his head as a first line defender, the Rangers found themselves behind the eight-ball.
How long the pair remain scratches remains to be seen, but one would expect them to be back in the line-up, particularly in the case of Smith, sooner rather than later.
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