The New York Rangers have traded Vincent Trocheck to the Utah Mammoth, sending the veteran center out of the Rangers dressing room on Wednesday.
New York gets back defenseman Sean Durzi, prospect Cole Beaudoin, and a third round pick in return.
Trocheck put up 53 points in 67 games this season for the Rangers, with 16 goals and 37 assists. He also carried a -16 rating, the kind of number that makes a front office start making calls.
Chris Drury didn't wait around. The Rangers GM moved a 32 year old center making $5,625,000 against the cap for a 27 year old defenseman who can still play top four minutes.
New York finished the year 34-39-9, good for 77 points and 29th overall in the league. No playoff games on the schedule. None.
That's the backdrop here. A team that ranked near the bottom of the NHL doesn't need more of the same. It needs a different shape on the blue line.
Trocheck brought size six and body to Broadway back in 2023 as a free agent addition, and he leaves with 631 points over his NHL career, including his time in Florida and Carolina before New York.
Utah bets on the veteran after a first round exit
Utah just wrapped a playoff run that ended in six games against Vegas, dropping the finale 1-5 on May 1st. Andre Tourigny's group went 43-33-6 in the regular season, 92 points, good enough to make it to the dance.
Adding Trocheck gives Tourigny a proven center who can slot into the middle six and eat penalty kill minutes. He posted 2 shorthanded goals this season, exactly the kind of detail that matters against a team like Vegas that just knocked Utah out.
Durzi heads to New York after posting 27 points in 60 games this season for Utah, with 22 of those coming as assists. He carried a -12 rating, his own version of the number Trocheck was shipped out for.
Is this an upgrade for the Rangers? Depends who you ask. Durzi is younger and cheaper on term, but he's coming off a season where his own possession numbers took a hit.
Bill Armstrong, Utah's GM, clearly decided a center with playoff scars was worth more than a defenseman who's shown flashes but not consistency. That's a fair bet for a team that just lost in six games.
The pick attached to this deal, a third rounder heading to New York, tells you Utah wasn't giving Trocheck away for nothing. Drury got value. Whether it's the right value is the argument that starts now.
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Trocheck heads west with 239 goals and 392 assists to his name over 868 career games. New York starts figuring out what its blue line looks like without knowing yet if Durzi is the long term answer or a placeholder before the next move.
Did the Rangers get enough for Vincent Trocheck?
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