The team that could become perfect fit for ex-Rangers coach

As of late in the week, no team had contacted the Rangers for permission to speak to Alain Vigneault since he was dismissed within hours of delivering his valedictory address following the team’s final game of last season in Philadelphia.

But we wonder if that might change within the not-too-distant future. Specifically, we would suggest that Vigneault could become a person of interest in Los Angeles if president Luc Robitaille and general manager Rob Blake grow impatient with third-year man John Stevens behind the bench.

The Kings are a win-now team that hasn’t won enough or played nearly well enough these first couple of weeks of the season, two out of seven (2-4-1) entering Saturday’s match against the Sabres. It is a team filled with veterans, four of their key players (Jeff Carter, Ilya Kovalchuk, Dion Phaneuf and Jonathan Quick) 32 or older and another two (Anze Kopitar and Alec Martinez), 31. Drew Doughty will turn 29 in six weeks.

In another words, a team that fits the profile for Vigneault, who has two years at $4 million-plus remaining on his Rangers contract. The 12th-winnigest coach in NHL history (648-435-35-98, with the third column representing ties and the fourth overtime/shootout defeats) has maintained a low profile since leaving New York. He is living in Florida.

No coach was fired last season. That scenario is unlikely to be duplicated this time around. It is still uncommonly early for a team to make a change behind the bench, but not unprecedented. The Flyers, for instance, relieved Peter Laviolette of his duties three games into 2013-14. Jacques Demers, who’d won a Cup in Montreal in 1993, was fired five games into 1995-96. The Blackhawks replaced franchise icon Denis Savard with Joel Quenneville after four games of the 2008-09 season. It happens.

It also happens that of every organization in the NHL, Los Angeles management probably was least realistic in its offseason expectations. If accuracy in self-evaluation is important for every player, it is no less than critical for a front office. Robitaille and Blake took a look at an aging roster that hadn’t won a playoff round since capturing its second Cup in three years in 2014 (over, of course, Vigneault’s Blueshirts), and went all-in on Kovalchuk. This was five months after trading for the faded Phaneuf.

The Kings fancy themselves contenders. Stevens, in his second year behind the bench as head man after stepping up to replace the notoriously taciturn and demanding Darryl Sutter, likely isn’t going to attempt to disabuse Robitaille and Blake of that notion.

If Stevens were hired in large part because he was not Sutter, Vigneault is the anti-Sutter. We’ve seen what the coach — under whom the Rangers went to one Cup final, another conference final and captured the Presidents’ Trophy in the first five years of his six-year tenure — can do with a veteran team.

This time, he’d have Kopitar and Doughty on his side.

Asking for a friend with the initials SY, but will the Red Wings make a change behind the bench in promoting assistant Dan Bylsma or will they allow Jeff Blashill to remain in place for the duration so as not to threaten the club’s hold on 31st-overall and thus the largest number of ping pong balls in the Jack Hughes sweepstakes?

So I have typed “Presidents’ Trophy” hundreds of times and I guess I would like someone to please explain why the NHL awards a Presidents’ Trophy when the league hasn’t had a president since John Ziegler completed his term more than a quarter of a century ago?

By the way, the no-facial hair and short-hair policy practiced by the Yankees and Islanders is the most ridiculous in pro sports, divorced in entirety from the business of producing results and winning championships.

The NHL found a way to suspend Mike Matheson for his concussion-inducing body slam of Elias Pettersson the way it should find reason to suspend Brad Marchand the next time he decides to beat someone up because he didn’t like the way an opponent celebrated a goal.

Don’t expect Gary Bettman to reduce recidivist Tom Wilson’s 20-game suspension in the aftermath of hearing his appeal on Thursday, but there is every chance the precedent-setting sentence could be decreased if appealed to independent, albeit player-friendly, arbitrator Shyam Das.

Perhaps the NHL might note that Wilson’s victim, fellow NHLPA member Oskar Sundqvist of the Blues, has not played since the Sept. 30, preseason incident.

The clock is ticking on Nashville’s Eeli Tolvanen — who, per contractual agreement, can leave North America for a return to the KHL once he has played 10 games in the AHL. The 19-year-old winger, selected 30th overall in 2017 and ruled off limits in trade talks last season when the Predators had interest in Rick Nash, had played six games with the AHL Admirals entering the weekend.

This just in: Brian Cashman has given Vigneault “A’s across the board” for his work in the 2017, six-game, Round 2 defeat to the Senators.