The NY Rangers had an ongoing soap opera las NHL trade deadline involving Vincent Trocheck. The who “will he” or “won’t he” in the lead-up to the deadline had fans on edge.
The talk was that the “retooling” Rangers would jettison Trocheck to recoup the assets they didn’t get in the Artemi Panarin trade.
The trade deadline came and went, and Trocheck was still in New York. The talk was that GM Chris Drury’s asking price was so high that no team could really match it.
All right, fair enough.
The Blue shirts were certainly within their rights to ask for the best possible return for Trocheck. However, that was not what materialized on July 1. The NY Rangers traded Trocheck to the Utah Mammoth for Sean Durzi, forward Cole Beaudoin, and a 2027 third-round pick.
That was it.
Make no mistake. Durzi is a good defenseman. The former second-round pick was a top-pairing guy for the bulk of his time in Utah. But the arrival of MacKenzie Weegar kind of made him expendable.
For the NY Rangers, Durzi is a flappable asset. He should be gone by next year’s deadline, as Durzi is in the final year of his current contract. Unless the Blueshirts figure he could be a part of their future, Durzi will become more pieces at some point.
Meanwhile, Beaudoin is a good prospect. He’s a former first-round pick. But the Mammoth did not give up their best. No Caleb Desnoyers, no Dmitri Simashev, no Daniil But.
What’s even worse, the NY Rangers didn’t even get a first-round pick out of this trade.
Minnesota Wild Had Much Better Offer for Trocheck on the Table
At the deadline, the Minnesota Wild reportedly had a much better offer on the table for Trocheck. The talk was a first-round pick, forward Danila Yurov, and a third piece.
Yurov would have been a comparable piece to Beaudoin, while the third piece was believed to be NCAA standout Charlie Stramel. The Wild apparently balked at the idea of including Stramel, leading to the trade falling apart.
And so, other organizations tried to make a deal with the NY Rangers, but none succeeded. The reported asking price remained high, even as the 2026 NHL Draft loomed.
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What Changed for NY Rangers Now?
Honestly, it doesn’t seem like anything has changed for the NY Rangers. If anything, the Pavel Dorofeyev sign-and-trade deal seemed to alleviate some of the pressure on Drury. There was even talk that Trocheck would remain specifically because of Dorofeyev.
While now fans know what Drury was really up to. It’s too bad because now the NY Rangers don’t really have a number-one center, unless Mika Zibanejad or J.T. Miller count as such.
The Blueshirts are no better off now than they were before the trade. The organization continues to make mind-boggling moves that seem to defy the logic of contending teams.
Let’s see if these moves are just intermediate steps towards something bigger down the line. But by the way the market is shaping up, fans shouldn’t expect to see a competitive product on the ice this upcoming season.
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