Rangers’ Trocheck About to Have His Role Grow in Importance

To call the past six months eventful for New York Rangers center Vincent Trocheck wouldn’t come close to doing the adjective justice, as the old saying goes.

In that time, he was tasked with adapting to a new team in a big city which plays a different style than the unique one employed by his previous team. He had to try and learn how to play with one of the NHL’s most creative and unorthodox superstars. He was eventually moved off that superstar’s line and found success with a different star linemate. Next, the Rangers plunked yet another superstar down on his right wing, with a limited number of regular-season games remaining for another get-to-develop-chemistry stretch. He was then briefly reunited with the original superstar linemate, before being put back on a line with the star linemate with whom he had succeeded earlier.

A quiet first season in the Big Apple, right?

Amidst the craziness, the Rangers’ second-line center has mostly produced with 19 goals and 38 assists, good for fifth on the team – numbers that are depressed by Trocheck hitting at least 10 posts. A move away from the Carolina Hurricanes’ man-on-man, hard-on-the-puck system of play has been more than manageable for Trocheck, whose 57 points are six more than he recorded in 81 games last season.

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Now, though, the 29-year-old has run into his longest goal drought of the season, going 0-for-March, 12 straight contests without finding the back of the net despite recording 10 assists in that span. Yet despite that dry spell and the myriad of roles the Rangers have already asked him to take on in his first season on Broadway, Trocheck’s importance to the Blueshirts is only growing down the stretch and into the playoffs.

Trocheck Has Been More Physical as Season Has Worn On

It’s probably not surprising Trocheck has hit a goal slump; he has to be at least somewhat confused at this point. Who else could go from a line with on-ice artist Artemi Panarin to start the season, to a line with straight-ahead power forward Chris Kreider, back to a line with Panarin along with trade-deadline arrival Patrick Kane, then to a unit with Kreider and Kane that’s supposed to be the final iteration of the club’s second line going into the playoffs?

If Trocheck’s head is spinning, he’s not letting on. Instead, along with his solid offensive production, his all-around game…