Traditional wisdom suggests you don’t mess with a good thing, but Vigneault never seems to get blinded by superstition. Take tonight’s Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final, for example. Vancouver beat Boston 1-0 in the opener of the Stanley Cup Final. It was a solid defensive performance, and his troops took control of the game when it mattered most in the 3rd. The Canucks were rewarded for dictating play with a clutch goal in the dying seconds from Raffi Torres — the lone Canuck (other than the injured Samuelsson) with Finals’ experience.

In Game 1, after losing stalwart rearguard Dan Hamhuis to injury, you’d have figured Edler, Salo, or Ehrhoff would have slid into the first defensive pairing alongside Kevin Bieksa. But Vigneault chose to go with Aaron Rome, who’s always been pigeonholed as an extra d-man, or a third pairing d-man at best. Rome won’t add much to the offense and he never does anything flashy, but then again, neither does Hamhuis — unless he’s throwing a spectacular hip check, like the one in Game 1 on Lucic that got him injured. Rome is sort of a poor man’s version of Hamhuis: he reads the play well, moves the puck quickly, and plays a smart, simple game. Of course, smart money might have been on Edler playing with Bieksa in Game 2 and Keith Ballard stepping in to fill the void on the third pairing. Ballard played well with Chris Tanev against San Jose when Ehrhoff and Rome were out, but Rome has been so consistent that it’s hard to argue with the decision.

The second surprise is that instead of using Ballard (and assuming Hamhuis can’t go), Andrew Alberts appears poised to play in his first game since Game 3 of the Nashville series. Alberts, a former Bruin, will play in only his fourth playoff game alongside Christian Ehrhoff. Alberts brings an added physical dimension to the back end, and you can imagine the 6-foot 5-inch Alberts banging and crashing pretty effectively against Boston’s big forwards since there isn’t the same element of speed San Jose can throw at you. The decision to dress Alberts once again leaves the high-priced Ballard in the press box, but Alberts is a reliable stay-at-home type. As a third pairing, it will allow Ehrhoff to carry the puck and join the attack.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, it appears Manny Malhotra will make his return to the Canucks’ lineup centring the fourth line. And it’s a perfect time for it. After a penalty-filled Game 1 which made the fourth lines on both teams pretty irrelevant (Tambellini played 2:30; Oreskovich played 1:54; and Bolduc played 1:39), having a faceoff specialist and penalty-killing master like Malhotra on your fourth line will help spread the penalty-killing minutes around if the game is called as tightly as Game 1.

The other consideration is that one of Boston’s true strengths is winning draws. Patrice Bergeron is an elite faceoff man (62.0% in the playoffs), while David Krejci (52.1%) and Rich Peverley (52.2%) are very strong as well. With the addition of Malhotra, it will be good to get him some work early in the series so that you’ve got the dynamic duo of Kesler and Malhotra to rely on for the crucial draws when games later in the series are hanging in the balance.

But you’ve gotta hand it to Vigneault. A couple years’ back, he was a compulsive line juggler. At the first sign of trouble, he’d start juggling. Sometimes it worked, but it lacked a sense of purpose. Now, he tinkers. He has the depth to do it, he tends to read match-ups with 20-20 insight, and because anyone can slot in on any given night, every depth guy seems ready to play their role when called upon. So it should be interesting to see how Alberts and Malhotra play after such long layoffs. But I suspect they’ll fit in seamlessly. The Canucks always seem to have a game plan, and when the core is all on the same page, the one or two new parts can generally fit into the whole without disrupting team chemistry.