It’s been three years since the Rangers named Jacob Trouba the team’s 28th captain in franchise history.. Excuse me, three months, and things have not exactly gone to plan for him or the team since. The Rangers held high expectations going into the season following their run to the Eastern Conference Finals and a quarter of the way into that season, currently sit outside the playoff picture looking in. During that first quarter, Jacob Trouba has only collected six assists in 23 games played. As a result, many fans are not happy with how our recently appointed leader has performed and while it’s certainly valid to expect more out of a prime-aged defender that makes eight million dollars a season, the team’s struggles haven’t all been on him. However, this is what happens when you are the Captain of the biggest market team in America. Somebody has to wear that blame and for the most part, it’s been number eight.
While Trouba has certainly struggled for the majority of the season, these last two games in particular have been especially alarming. There was the third period collapse against Edmonton, where the team not only blew a three goal lead, but Trouba more or less let one of the Oilers star players embarrass him and now, there was the disappointing result against New Jersey last night where Trouba had at least two visible, bad mistakes. While many fans have been up in arms with how he’s performed and led this team through 23 games, it is important to note that he has been nursing a nagging injury for a majority of the season. While that’s not an excuse for his shortcomings, nor the team’s, we don’t know for a fact what the injury really is or how it has affected him. He’s been seen in the locker room wearing something on his hand/wrist so that would be our first guess but for all the fans know, there could be a lot more to it.
As the team is now over a quarter of the way through the 2022-23 campaign, their first in years with a captain, it’s worth evaluating how Trouba has done so far. Frankly, the results haven’t been great which leads to the question of whether or not the pressure of wearing the “C” in New York has gotten to him or if his injury and the team’s overall performance is more to blame. It was brought to fans attention early in November that Trouba has been dealing with a “nagging injury” which lead to several maintenance days but no games off for the 28 year old defender. At that point in the season, he along with his D partner K’Andre Miller, were being outscored 5-13 and since then, those numbers haven’t gotten much better. Despite the injury, Gallant made note that it wasn’t major, that he was in good communication with the training staff and this was “playoff-type of hockey for him right now.”
Nothing about the Rangers performance in the last month has resembled anything close to “playoff-type of hockey” and as the team’s captain, Trouba has been among the leader’s of that landslide. Throughout the month of November, he has been a minus eight with three assists, a non-factor on most nights. His partner, K’Andre Miller has only been minus three in that same stretch with four assists. The two have been stuck to each other like glue since the start of last season with the exception of brief stints when injuries arose. With Miller having slightly better numbers than Trouba, you have to think now might be the time to change things up, even if it’s just to see how it’ll work.
Now we know Trouba hasn’t been great all season and in November specifically, his lackluster play has continued to regress. In the two most recent showings, there have been a couple instances where he has looked flat out defeated. During the team’s third period collapse against Edmonton over the weekend, Leon Draisaitl punched the stick out of Trouba’s hands after heading to the bench to celebrate the go ahead goal. A pretty disrespectful move by Draisaitl that should’ve led to Trouba or somebody reacting in any way. Nevertheless, Trouba just disappointedly headed over to pick up his stick as his teammates stood in disbelief that they were now on the brink of blowing this game. While obviously from a fan’s perspective, it’s easy to expect Trouba to have done something after that, it is worth noting that he hasn’t been at full health as far as we know and from what we’ve gathered, it might be a hand/wrist related injury. IF that is indeed the case, he very well could be on Doctor’s orders to not fight which would explain the lack of response on his end.
On the flip-side, no response is a response in itself and at the very least, Trouba could’ve shown some sort of emotion there and that is what’s rubbing a lot of fans the wrong way. Trouba alone shouldn’t be to blame for this because if he is indeed not able to fight, there should be at least SOMEONE on the team willing to go after Draisaitl in that situation. After something like that, given the inconsistent success the team has had this year, you need to be willing to risk the game misconduct or whatever penalty you’d get in retaliating there, you’re playing for pride which is something this team hasn’t shown at all this season. Sure enough, Draisaitl skated merrily right past the Rangers bench and the Oilers went on to steal that game right from the Rangers grasp.
This brings us to last night where Trouba had at the bare minimum, two instances where he looked completely discombobulated out there, one of which led to a Devils goal. The first being a play where Trouba went to deliver a hit, a play he is usually among the best in the league at making. In this case, Trouba completely missed the player and ended up throwing himself out of the play in doing so. While I’m certainly not complaining that he was attempting to play physical, that alone should be a red flag that something is wrong as delivering big hits is usually his bread and butter. The Devils are a very fast team but that can not be an excuse, especially in a game that was as close as it gets to a must-win. Then later that night, Trouba completely whiffed on an attempt to clear out a loose puck which led to it going from the blade of a Devils player’s stick to the back of the net past Igor. If you’re unable to make consistent contact with the puck, let alone players, you can’t be playing at the NHL level.
Again, we don’t exactly know what this nagging mystery injury is, how severe it is or how much it is affecting his playing abilities but if it is the root of the problem in his game, especially as of late, PUT HIM ON IR. Sure we need to win games, especially right now but clearly he’s not helping and with the team’s cap situation, they should be totally fine with putting eight million dollars worth of cap on IR for a little bit. The Rangers depth on the back end is concerning but shouldn’t be so concerning that we’re playing guys through injuries that leave them ineffective. Even if Trouba’s play isn’t because of an injury, we’re getting to the point where scratching him for a game might be the kind of message this team needs to wake up from whatever slump they can’t seem to shake.
It’s clear that a special kind of pressure comes with being Captain of the New York Rangers and at the surface, it’s fair to say Trouba has struggled with it. Is that to say this is the end all be all for him and that he’s never going to turn it around? Absolutely not. It’s obvious his performance is growing more and more alarming as the season goes but like it or not, he’s a Ranger for the next three years. From an individual standpoint, he has time to turn it around and it’s foolish to think he’s incapable of it. However, it’s becoming more and more apparent that something needs to spark a change for this team and if he’s unable to do it himself, perhaps sending a message and giving him a night or two in the press box will. The team isn’t in a great position to make a move at this moment so the problems are going to have to be solved internally As a team, they are running out of time as they are falling deeper and deeper into this hole they are digging themselves so as frustrating as it is, they have to just keep working to turn it around as soon as they possibly can.
Chris Feldman
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