New York Rangers fire head coach Alain Vigneault

Nearly five hours after their regular season finale against the Philadelphia Flyers, the New York Rangers will be searching for a new face behind the bench. According to an official team release, Jeff Gorton has finally pulled the band-aid off and relieved Alain Vigneault of his coaching duties. This has been a long-time coming, and with the Rangers committing to a rebuild at this year’s trade deadline, the writing seemed to be on the wall for Vigneault

That isn’t to say Vigneault is a bad coach either, but he quickly fell out favor with this newly discovered direction by the Rangers. There are going to be plenty of young players passing through the system in the coming years, and with Vigneault’s veteran coaching mentality, this was the end of the road. As Bob McKenzie noted, the search for a new coach will begin immediately and this is a first of many moves that the Rangers really need to nail down.

Given the timeline, the Rangers would probably like to have someone in place prior to the draft so they have a set direction before stepping onto the draft floor. There is expected to be a lot of movement from the Rangers this summer, and they certainly started it all off with a massive, yet much needed move.