Chris Drury and the New York Rangers front office will have plenty of decisions to make between now and the trade deadline on March 8, but one has already reportedly been made.
The Rangers have no intentions of shipping forward Vincent Trocheck out in any impending trades per NHL insider Elliotte Friedman.
"The most coveted Ranger is undoubtedly Vincent Trocheck. But they aren't interested in [trading him], and, listening to his comments lately, you could see them making him captain," Friedman wrote in his "32 Thoughts" column.
Trocheck has emerged as a beacon of leadership for the Rangers amid a campaign of utter turmoil.
When Drury tried to trade former captain Jacob Trouba in the offseason and the latter refused waive his contract's no-trade clause, there was an effect on the locker room and it could have been the genesis of why the Rangers — the same team that came six wins away from a Stanley Cup within the last 12 months — began to break down.
By the time Drury did eventually trade Trouba on Dec. 8, the gravity was already too heavy on the Rangers.
Other veteran leadership such as Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider have had years of striking regression and both have been mentioned in trade rumors.
Trocheck is a top-three point producer on the team, and for what it's worth, has been one of the few Rangers that has performed somewhat consistently. But it's not so much just his on-ice value that is cementing his place is Drury's long-term plans; it's how he's chosen to step up in the fleeting presences of these aforementioned names.
"That could not be further from the truth," Trocheck said to reporters when a rumor swirled that a players' meeting that was held was for the purpose to criticize management. "If we have a closed-door meeting, with just the players, I think the last that we'd do is complain about our general manager. When we have closed-door meetings in here, it's about us. It's about what we can do."
Taking this kind of initiative in such an unstable climate (in New York no less) showed fibers of captain material to the team, media, and fans.
"Obviously, we're in a little bit of a hole right now, and it's about what we can do to get out of it. It has nothing to do with management," Trocheck said. "They do their job. Chris is doing his job to try to put the best players on the ice to succeed. We are those players, and we have to go out there and perform. Do we what can to succeed. I just wanted to clear the air on that.
"There's a lot of stuff circulating our team right now, and when I see something like that, I don't know where it even comes from. That kind of frustrated me."
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