RALEIGH, N.C. — Tom Dundon, Carolina’s notoriously penurious owner, didn’t want to pay Vincent Trocheck when the center came up on free agency two years ago but the CEO and his team are sure paying now.
“We knew he was a good player, that’s why we got him,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said, alluding to his team pilfering Trocheck from Florida at the 2020 trade deadline. “We tried to keep him. Didn’t work out.
“Business.”
That’s a commentary on the business as operated by Dundon, whose fingerprints are all over every decision the hockey department reaches and who has the reputation of being far more generous with players from the outside than those in the system.
The Rangers also knew Trocheck was a good player after battling against No. 16 for seven games in the 2022 second round when the Blueshirts took out the Canes. Actually, they knew he was a very good player and, maybe even more than that, the kind of player with attitude the club had been missing.
For seven games — the final six of which he played between Andrei Svechnikov and Martin Necas on the second line — Trocheck was in the Rangers’ faces, yapping, chirping, never stopping, always hounding the puck and making plays in dirty areas.
Trocheck’s free agency coincided with Ryan Strome’s. When it became apparent that the marriage was ending with the incumbent No. 16, GM Chris Drury identified Trocheck as his prime target before coming away with him for seven years at an annual cap hit of $5.625 million.
Business.
Rangers style.
The Blueshirts are shooting for the sweep over Carolina on Saturday that would send them to the conference finals. Should they prevail in this one, they would become the first team to sweep the opening two rounds of the playoffs since the NHL adopted four rounds of best-of-seven in 1987.
Remember, even if they do make history in this Game 4, the job will only be halfway done. All eyes are on the chalice, not door prizes.
When you typically think of the Rangers’ elite talent, you reel off Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad and Adam Fox. You might note that Chris Kreider is an elite goal-scorer, an elite net-front presence on the power play and elite penalty-killer. You could cite Alexis Lafreniere having elite first-overall skills. But Trocheck belongs in the conversation.
“I do think he has that high hockey IQ and skill level as well,” head coach Peter Laviolette said Friday. “I think the person who plays the bumper on the power play has to be one of the smartest guys, he’s constantly trying to figure out where the holes are.
“His IQ works on both ends of the spectrum defensively and offensively.”
Trocheck is as yappy as ever, as chippy as ever, as antagonizing as ever, as obnoxious as ever to play against, and you could just ask Sebastian Aho about that after Trocheck flexed in the Canes’ brilliant center’s face immediately after Lafreniere’s go-ahead 2-1 goal at 6:25 of the third period.
Actually, I asked Aho whether he had been close to Trocheck as teammates and whether the byplay reflected the competitive nature of the athletes.
“I was, yes,” he said. He paused and didn’t want to say too much. “Hockey.”
A bit later in the match it was Trocheck who scooped the puck out of the corner on Lafreniere’s dump-in when Dmitry Orlov couldn’t handle it and backhanded it to the net for Panarin’s exquisite between-the-legs deflection for the Game 3 OT winner.
Trocheck has 12 points (five goals, seven assists) in the postseason, tied for the team lead with Zibanejad (3-9) and one off the NHL lead held by Connor McDavid entering Friday. Hey, Trocheck and McDavid were both All-Stars, right? Linemates Panarin (4-5) and Lafreniere (3-6) both have nine points.
The Trocheck line has driven the team’s offense all season. It has been one of the most dynamic lines in the league, blending skill with an edge. And if things had gone according to plan, it would never have even existed.
For Vinny Trocheck, second-line center last year while playing with Panarin, reported to camp as the third-line center in the lineup drawn by the then-incoming Laviolette. Filip Chytil would open the season between Panarin and Lafreniere with Trocheck slotting between Will Cuylle and Blake Wheeler on a quasi-checking line.
You want to hear something remarkable? Over the first 10 games of the season, the Cuylle-Trocheck-Wheeler line was not on the ice for a single Rangers goal. Meanwhile, the Panarin-Chytil-Lafreniere line was kind of making some magic. Opening night in Buffalo, I called them, “Tic-Tac-Toe.”
But it was Game 10 in which Chytil went down for the season — the regular season — when he went bump in the night with Jesper Fast. Trocheck thus reclaimed that spot and never once looked back.
“You know, I didn’t really view it as a demotion at the time, I don’t really know that I knew the team well enough at that time to say that this was the way [it was going to be],” Laviolette said Friday. “I’m trying to evaluate new players on a new team and young players I think may be ready to take the next step in their careers.
“If I just did it by seniority and just said, ‘Well, he’s here,’ it might not have given Fil the chance or the opportunity to see what he could do in a situation playing with a guy like Artemi Panarin.
“But [Trocheck] was still counted on as first unit on the power play, one of the first guys out the door on the penalty kill, there to win a game late up a goal or down a goal, so there were a lot of things that hadn’t changed with that.”
It has been all season. Faceoffs, face-on-five, specialty teams, down and dirty. Trocheck has been in the middle of it all. You might even say he is taking care of business.
