Rangers need to figure out how to clean up the Jacob Trouba situation
Jacob Trouba speaks at Rangers breakup day media availability, Tuesday, June 4, 2024, in Tarrytown. Credit: Corey Sipkin
When you are the general manager of a professional sports team, you are going to have to make some hard decisions. And in a league with a hard salary cap such as the NHL, you can’t afford to be sentimental. You have to be ruthless at times.
Rangers general manager Chris Drury certainly has shown he can be ruthless. He did that when he put Barclay Goodrow on waivers in an attempt to get rid of some or all of Goodrow’s $3.64 million salary-cap hit and free up some money to play with in free agency. And it worked, as the San Jose Sharks — run by Drury’s college teammate and friend, Mike Grier — claimed Goodrow off waivers, taking him off the Rangers’ books completely.
But Drury’s ruthlessness hasn’t worked thus far in the Jacob Trouba situation, which has turned into an utter mess, one that is not going to be easy to clean up.
Trouba, the Rangers’ captain, had a no-move clause for the first five years of the seven-year, $56 million contract he signed with them in 2019. But as of this past Monday, that no-move clause became a limited no-trade clause in which the 30-year-old defenseman can submit a list of 15 teams to which he cannot be traded.
After watching Trouba struggle through the playoffs and end the postseason on the third defense pair, Drury tried to trade him.
Getting out from under all or part of his $8 million cap hit would give Drury more money to spend in the chase for impact free agents, and a published report last weekend suggested a deal with Trouba’s hometown Detroit Red Wings was close, with the Rangers willing to retain $2.5 million in each of the two remaining years of his contract.
But that never happened, and the Rangers weren’t able to make any kind of a splash in free agency Monday. Instead, they traded for Penguins winger Reilly Smith to try to fill the hole at right wing on the Mika Zibanejad-Chris Kreider line and signed fourth-line center Sam Carrick. It was an underwhelming day.
That night, a published report came out saying that Trouba doesn’t want to leave New York because his wife, Dr. Kelly Tyson-Trouba, is entering the final year of her medical residency in New York and cannot move now. As a result, the report said, teams likely won’t want to trade for Trouba now and would be better off waiting till next year.
That meant, after all the noise around Trouba since the season ended, the Rangers most likely are going to bring him back for next season.
They still have the option of buying him out if they decide they don’t want to bring him back. The buyout window is closed, but teams are allowed to open a second window if they have a player file for arbitration, and defenseman Ryan Lindgren is eligible for arbitration.
But if they did buy out Trouba, they would have to bring in a defenseman to replace him. And with most of the quality free agents already signed, is there someone still available who would be as good as Trouba but cheaper?
So they’ll probably bring him back. But if they do, how much fence-mending will Drury need to do to patch things up with his captain? Could he just tell him, “Hey, sorry about trying to dump your contract over the summer, but it was only business. Can we let bygones be bygones?’’
What will Trouba’s teammates think when he walks into the dressing room in September and everyone knows the team tried to get rid of him over the summer? Can he still be the team captain, or might he ask the team to take the “C’’ off his jersey?
And what about his on-ice performance? Will he still block all those shots he used to? Will he hit opposing players as hard? Will he drop the gloves and fight for his teammates if necessary?
Drury could have tried to smooth things over by declaring that Trouba is staying put. He had the opportunity to do so in a Zoom call with reporters Monday afternoon when he was asked directly about Trouba’s situation and whether he believes the captain still will be with the club for training camp in September. He could have said yes, absolutely, and ended all speculation about Trouba’s future.
But true to his give-as-little-information-as-possible style, he did not.
What a mess.
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.