PHILADELPHIA — In hockey parlance, the coach of the Rangers told everybody that regardless of the final 34-39-9 score run up against the team, he had his man.
Alain Vigneault, a proud fellow with a résumé that includes being tied for the 10th-most victories in the NHL and the third most in Rangers history, delivered an impassioned defense of his record on Saturday, citing successes with veteran and younger teams in Montreal and Vancouver, as well as on Broadway.
It was an oration following his team’s dreary 5-0 defeat to the Flyers in the season finale in which he pumped his and his staff’s tires without a nod to accepting even a portion of the blame for a year that skidded off the shoulder and into a ravine by the middle of January, even if the decree by ownership and management to pull the plug didn’t come until early February.