‘It could be any of us’: Ranger players react to Jacob Trouba trade

Jonny Lazarus
Jonny Lazarus
Jacob Trouba and Vincent Trocheck
Credit: Sep 24, 2024; New York, New York, USA; New Yoark Rangers defenseman Jacob Trouba (8) celebrates a goal with center Vincent Trocheck (16) during the third period against the New York Islanders at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Danny Wild-Imagn Images

Well, it was certainly an entertaining day in one of the most entertaining cities in the world. 

After it was initially reported last week that New York Rangers general manager Chris Drury was shopping around his team’s captain, Jacob Trouba, it felt like this move happened very quickly. 

On Friday afternoon, Trouba was traded to the Anaheim Ducks for Urho Vaakanainen and a 2025 conditional fourth-round pick. 

“Every team you go to, you build relationships with everybody on the team, and you become — as cliche as it sounds, you become brothers with these guys and it’s always tough to see anybody go,” Vincent Trocheck said. “Troubs I’ve known for a long time, and for him to go as one of the big leaders on our team — it’s always tough. It was a tough morning, obviously, and we knew we had to come in here tonight and really show up.” 

Often times, when trades and things like these happen, you hear players go with the mentality of “business as usual,” but that wasn’t the case for Friday’s game, in which the Rangers defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-2.

Seeing a captain get traded, especially the leader of an Original Six team, can be looked at as a message being sent by management. The Rangers head coach said earlier in the day that a message being sent was not the intention, but some of the players don’t necessarily see it that way. 

“I don’t know if it’s intended to send a message, but obviously it does,” Trocheck said. “Whenever your captain gets traded, it just kind of sets the precedent that if you don’t produce, you don’t win games, that management has to do something to change it up, and it could be any of us. It sends a little bit of a message and we have to make sure that we’re coming each night now — not that we didn’t before.”

Trouba spoke with the media once the trade went through and opened up about how difficult it was for him to lead this season with everything weighing on him. 

“Yeah, I was pretty open with players on the team, with the leadership group,” Trouba said. “I mean, leading was a little bit harder for me in that situation, knowing things that were public. If they weren’t public and other guys didn’t know I think that would’ve been a little bit of an easier situation for me. Things unfolded how they did. It was tough at times, for sure.”

In this sport, you’re taught to just put your head down and go to work, because that is what’s best for the team. As humans, all you want to do is be the strongest version of yourself, but with all of the noise surrounding Trouba, it’s only natural to not be able to just brush those things off and play your game. It’s not easy to come to the rink every day and just pretend things are okay. 

“He’s not going to — I don’t want to speak for Jacob, but he’s not going to come to the rink and show that. He cares so much and he didn’t want to let it slip into the team, but you can imagine, right? When you’re in one of the biggest hockey markets in the league, you’re the captain, and those kind of rumors are out there — it’s got to be extremely tough to put on a brave face, I guess you could say, and come to the rink and be that leader,” Trocheck said.

Trocheck has been one of the emotional and vocal leaders of this team since joining this organization in 2022-23, and he’s been around long enough to have a ton of empathy for his teammates. 

“It’s tough for all of us — when we’re not the captain of the team, to come to the rink whenever we’re going through a slump — when we’re losing six out of seven. It’s always tough to come to the rink and have that energy and have that confidence and all of that, so you could only imagine what it would be like for him.” 

If you’ve watched the Rangers play this season, it’s been evident that something about them is different. The mental psyche and noise surrounding the group had crept into their on-ice performance, the fans could see it, and if the players were being honest with themselves, they could feel it. 

“There’s been a cloud over our heads for a little while,” Trocheck said. “When you lose games, that’s what happens. It takes wins like this, and more passion, emotion, out of everybody to get rid of that.” 

The goal is to win every hockey game, but with everything that has transpired over these past few weeks, it was a little extra important for this team to win this game. 

“It’s a different direction, it’s a starting point for that,” Peter Laviolette told Daily Faceoff. “A win is the way to start it. If you’re going to start something and you’re going to move it in a different direction, you’d like to get out with a win. You’d like to get out feeling like you played well in the game, and I think we accomplished that.” 

This day felt like a long time coming for Trouba and the organization, but now that it’s behind them the team can continue to try and claw their way out of this slump. 

“The day happened, we needed to do that anyway. When things aren’t going your way, you got to stay together. You have to play for each other. It’s the only way out of it sometime,” Laviolette said. “Tonight, for me, was a positive step. It’s one step. We need to follow it up more.”

The coach and the players can take a deep breath, but the work, and perhaps the moves from management, have only just begun. 

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