Photo Credit: Adam Hunger/USA TODAY Sports
New York Rangers head coach Alain Vigneault, formerly the best and most successful coach in Vancouver Canucks franchise history bar none, doesn’t seem to have completely exorcised the ghosts from the 2011 Stanley Cup Final. 
In the wake of his team’s controversial loss in Boston on Friday afternoon, the Rangers bench boss has invoked the memory of 2011 often and unintentionally. He’s also been critical of the NHL’s officiating  standards and the Department of Player Safety. And he’s taken some amusing shots at Brad ‘persona non grata’ Marchand. The evidence is mounting that perhaps Vigneault is still a Canuck at heart.
Let’s recap what went on with Vigneault’s Rangers and the Boston Bruins on Friday. It really started with this late Matt Beleskey hit on Derek Stepan, which resulted in multiple broken ribs for New York’s top-line centre:
I hate the hit, personally. It’s way too late and textbook boarding. The hit ultimately went unpenalized by the on-ice officials and it seems that the NHL’s Department of Player Safety has declined to pursue supplemental discipline.
Meanwhile Rangers tough Dylan McIlrath, who fought Beleskey after the hit, was assessed an instigator penalty and the Bruins tied the game on the ensuing power play. 
“I just think he didn’t think I was going to hit him,” Beleskey said of the hit. “He kind of didn’t brace himself. I didn’t take any extra strides or anything like that. Maybe, maybe, a little bit late. But he saw me coming, I came from the front. So, it’s unfortunate that … I think I just saw he’s injured, so hopefully he’s all right.”
The hit was way, way late – of that there should be no doubt – which prompted Vigneault to drop a rather loaded comparison.
“In our opinion it was a late hit,” Vigneault said of the play, according to CBS Boston. “It was more than a second and he was a couple of feet away from the boards, so we’€™ll have to wait and see. I remember Aaron Rome in this building, .06 seconds late and getting suspended four games in the Stanley Cup finals, so it’€™ll be interesting to see.”
The Aaron Rome – Nathan Horton incident was phenomenally interesting, as you’ll recall. It was absolutely a bad hit (though rewatching it just now, I’m not sure the head was the primary point of contact and it may not even qualify as a rule 48 violation under the current rule), but the severity of the punishment doled out to Rome in the Stanley Cup Final was, and is still, without precedent in NHL history. 
It’s a play that has bothered Vigneault for years, and he’s invoked it on multiple occasions when criticizing referees or the league for missing a late hit against his teams.
The Beleskey hit wasn’t the only controversial play in Friday’s game. Legendary Canucks nemesis Brad Marchand also kneed Henrik Lundqvist in the head (Lundqvist did sell it a bit to make sure he got the call, but it was definitely a penalty).
This sequence prompted Bruins coach Claude Julien to land a haymaker chirp on the Rangers’ attractive netminder.
“I know he does some acting on the side, but he doesn’t need to do it on the ice,” Julien said of Lundqvist, courtesySportsnet.
Marchand offered his own spot of colour on the play too:
Vigneault fired back in defense of his star player on Saturday, or he attempted to, but a Freudian slip revealed where Vigneault’s head is really at.
“(Claude’s comment were) totally wrong and probably Claude is getting a little older and needs to check his eyesight,” Vigneault said of his old rival, according to Dan Rosen.
He then revealing added:
The Rangers clarified later that, indeed, Vigneault had meant to name check Henrik Lundqvist and not Henrik Sedin.
Vigneault’s series of fun comments prompted Boston Bruins reporter Matt Kalman to suggest on Friday that the Rangers bench boss is dealing with a case of 2011 PTSD. I’m not sure these are PTSD symptoms Vigneault is displaying though. Complaining about the refereeing, subconscious exaltation of the Sedin twins, a cold hatred for Brad Marchand, and clinging to the memory of 2011-related injustice are really just the common symptoms of Canucks fandom.