from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

It should not have happened but it did.

Alain Vigneault should not have “lost” Brendan Smith in the third period of Saturday’s stunning second-guess feast of a Game 2, 6-5 double-overtime defeat in Ottawa. But the coach on Sunday admitted that’s just what happened.

“I was looking for certain matchups and sometimes within a game’s flow, certain players get lost for a couple of minutes and that’s what happened,” Vigneault said when asked why No. 42 had gotten so little time in the third period. “It wasn’t performance-related. Brendan played a good game with bite. It just happened that way.”

Again. It should not have happened. Smith, who has played with an edge throughout the playoffs and had sparred repeatedly with Kyle Turris to the Rangers’ advantage throughout Game 2, somehow was on the ice for just two shifts and a combined 35 seconds over the final 12:48 of the third period as the match slipped away in shocking fashion.

Vigneault did not specify the matchups he was seeking — or seeking to avoid — but it’s difficult to figure that eight games into the tournament the coach still regards the Smith-Brady Skjei pair as his weakest tandem and thus the one to shelter.

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