The captain of the New York Rangers is Jacob Trouba and may very well remain so for the foreseeable future.
The anticipated trade to Detroit did not materialize after No. 8 handed in his 15-team no-trade list to GM Chris Drury as due on Monday. Sources now report that the deal as depicted in this space on Saturday with the Blueshirts retaining $2.5 million of Trouba’s annual $8M cap charge the next two years was not on the table. We are told that the suggestion Trouba rejected the deal is not true.
Monday’s first day of free agency came and went without the Rangers shoring up their defense. Indeed, the club lost incumbent sixth defenseman Erik Gustafsson to, well, the Red Wings for a two-year deal at $2M a year. Zac Jones moves up the depth chart to that third-pair spot on the left.
Rangers captain Jacob Trouba appears to be staying put.
Other defensemen who might have filled the blue line void left by Trouba’s hypothetical departure went off the board quickly. Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson went to Toronto. Brett Pesce and Brenden Dillon signed with the Devils. Nikita Zadorov joined the Bruins.
If the Rangers press to move Trouba in order to clear a substantial amount of cap space, they would have to find a replacement via the trade market for which the club has few available, valued assets. The team has no one in the pipeline ready to step in for top-six minutes.
There is, The Post has learned, another factor in the equation that might keep the 30-year-old on Broadway for a longer spell.
When Trouba signed this current seven-year, $56M contract in July of 2019 after having been acquired as a pending restricted free agent from Winnipeg, his five-year no-movement clause was designed to expire in conjunction with his wife Kelly Tyson-Trouba’s completion of her three-year residency at a New York hospital.
But Dr. Tyson-Trouba’s residency was deferred for a year at the start so that the program which she is required to complete will end instead on July 1, 2025. The Troubas also welcomed their first child, a boy named Axel, in mid-January.
There is no guarantee that Jacob Trouba would accept a trade even to a club on his approved list if that means leaving his wife and nine-month-old (as of training camp) behind. It is not as if Dr. Tyson-Trouba can pick up, transfer her credits to another hospital, accompany her husband and still be licensed as a physician.
Jacob Trouba is expected to serve as the Rangers’ third-pair right defenseman.
We are told that has become part of the league-wide conversation, with several teams that otherwise would have been in big-time on Trouba now likely to wait until next year when Dr. Tyson-Trouba’s residency ends with the defenseman having one final season on his contract.
Sources report that communication between Trouba, his camp and Drury and management have been professional without animosity that would infect or negatively impact the defenseman’s role as captain. If nothing further develops, it might become a one-sentence Q&A the first day of training camp.
“As I said at the end of the year, Jacob plays hard every night and provides a lot of leadership for us,” Drury said on a conference call with the media on Monday when asked about Trouba’s status. “Jacob knows what I think of him as a person and a player. I’m going to keep any private conversation I have with him or his agent to be kept private.
“We’re always looking to move the team forward and be the best we can be, but I’m not going to go through it, player by player, and who’s going to be here and who’s not going to be here.”
Trouba, who was not hailed in the same manner as Bob Baun in 1964 for playing on a broken ankle in the playoffs, is projected to be the club’s third-pair right defenseman behind Adam Fox and Braden Schneider. It is obviously not cost effective to have a third-pair D eating up $8M of cap space, but that’s the Rangers’ situation.
The Blueshirts still have to sign Schneider and Ryan Lindgren, who are both restricted free agents. Lindgren, who is believed to be seeking a longer deal than with which the Rangers are comfortable, has arbitration rights one year ahead of unrestricted free agency. Either No. 55 or the team would be expected to file, absent a long-term agreement.
If management’s first rule of free agency is to do no harm, Drury accomplished that on this low-key day by signing 32-year-old fourth-line edgy center Sam Carrick to a three-year deal with an annual average value of $1M per year and by acquiring 33-year-old winger Reilly Smith from the Penguins for a second-rounder in 2027 and a fifth-rounder in 2025.
Smith, who will carry a $3.75M cap charge with the Penguins retaining $1.25M, had a down year after leaving 2023 Cup champion Vegas via a trade, recording 13 goals and 40 points. He becomes a candidate to slip in on the right with Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider. He also comes with only a one-year commitment.
The twin additions leave the Blueshirts with approximately $10.8M in space on a shadow roster that features two goaltenders, 14 forwards and four defensemen — including Jacob Trouba.
