Why ‘it was time’ for Rangers to trade Vincent Trocheck, not wait longer
Trading Vincent Trocheck this offseason felt like an inevitability for the New York Rangers. But that doesn’t mean it was a simple decision nor will be easy for the Rangers to replace the veteran center.
Trocheck averaged 21 minutes TOI over four seasons in New York, after signing a seven-year contract with the Rangers in free agency back in July of 2022. He scored more than 20 goals three of those four seasons, recorded a career-high 77 points in 2023-24 when he also represented the Rangers in the NHL All-Star Game, and consistently was one the best face-off men in the League.
Not only did Trocheck play on the top power-play and penalty-killing units, take pretty much every important face-off, and be a heart-and-soul player on both sides of the puck, he was a leader on and off the ice, in good times and bad.
Oh, and he did all this while making $5.625 million annually.
“In a cap world, that’s a pretty friendly number, and if you go down the middle with [Mika] Zibanejad, [J.T.] Miller, Trocheck, and [Noah] Laba, you know what, that looks pretty good,” MSG Network analyst Dave Maloney told Forever Blueshirts on the Rink Rap podcast. “But that’s not to be.”
That’s because the Rangers traded Trocheck to the Utah Mammoth on July 1 for defenseman Sean Durzi, center prospect Cole Beaudoin, and a third-round pick in the 2027 draft.
And that trade came less than a week after the Rangers acquired Pavel Dorofeyev, the 25-year-old stud sniper, from the Vegas Golden Knights in a stunning draft-day deal.
“I was a little surprised they did not keep Trocheck, when they traded for Dorofeyev,” NHL insider Elliotte Friedman stated on the latest 32 Thoughts podcast. “I just think Dorofeyev’s a talented guy and he can score, and he’s a killer on the power play, and in Vegas he had guys setting him up. [The Rangers] still have talent there, Zibanejad obviously, Miller obviously, but Trocheck really could have helped that. And I actually heard that the Rangers thought about it, but I just think it was time. I think for Trocheck, it was time.”
Dave Maloney draws Jacob Trouba comparison to Rangers trade of Vincent Trocheck
Trocheck turns 33 this month and has three years remaining on that affordable contract. He can most definitely still play at a high level, and some question if the Rangers erred by not naming him captain instead of Miller a year ago.
When the team collapsed last season, general manager Chris Drury publicly announced plans to retool, and shortly thereafter shipped Artemi Panarin to the Los Angeles Kings. With so many untradeable contracts on the Rangers, Trocheck, with his limited no-move clause, became a very valuable asset as part of the roster turnover.
So valuable in fact that Drury held on to Trocheck at the trade deadline last March because interested teams didn’t meet his asking price. But that also felt like a breaking point for Trocheck, who braced for a trade, then retreated more into himself when it didn’t happen.
So, yes, a trade this summer felt inevitable, and like the right thing to do for Trocheck and his family, so that they could move on.
“It’s not cutting your losses because there is no loss, he still has value,” Maloney explained. “But there’s that lingering thing. And if things don’t start the way you hoped (next season), then it starts to fester. It’s a little bit like the Jacob Trouba situation. He came to camp (in 2024) a different Jacob Trouba, and that was not healthy.”
The Rangers eventually traded Trouba to the Anaheim Ducks in December 2004, months after things began to deteriorate between the team and its captain the prior offseason. And that trade only happened after Drury threatened to put Trouba on waivers if he didn’t sign off on the trade.
Things likely wouldn’t have reached that level with Trocheck — hopefully Drury learned some valuable lessons in his previous mishandlings of people and players — but it sure did feel like it was time to end the relationship.
“So, you have him, but is he the same Trocheck prior to the trade deadline at 2026?.” Maloney added. “The other side to this is clean the slate. He’s going to a place that he has to agree to go to, going to a good team, a really solid franchise that’s new to the League. You just move on. And I think that’s probably the best way to sit with this.”
