The New York Rangers acquired defenseman Jacob Trouba from the Winnipeg Jets and signed the Michigan native to a long term deal cementing his building block status. What can the team do to put Trouba in a position to succeed?
Ever since the New York Rangers dealt Ryan McDonagh at the 2018 NHL trade deadline, the organization lacked a number one defenseman and the gaping hole left the team deeply flawed. While Jacob Trouba has the talent to assume that role, it is a matter of the right-handed defenseman taking another step in his career.
Typically, a player reaches their peak production at age 24 according to hockeygraphs.com’s model. Granted, the style of play in the league is moving away from physical play and careers are lasting longer, but the point still remains. A player’s mid-20s are the peak of their production in terms of points, so Trouba will still have years of production ahead.
In theory, the Rangers will have the luxury of penciling Trouba into the first defensive pair for the next seven years. This, in turn, will give the rest of the unit more balance and allow several players to revert to a better situation. Too often in the past 18 months, necessity forced players like Neal Pionk and Marc Staal up the depth chart into roles they weren’t well suited for.
But with New York likely being at least one year away from contender status, if not more, this is an opportune time to experiment with young talent.
Going against the grain
It may be counter intuitive to leave a team’s best offensive defenseman off of the power play, but there is a case for using Trouba in other situations. First, we need to peel back the curtain on Trouba’s 2018-2019 campaign with the Jets and how he produced at a career-best rate.
The defenseman’s most common partner last season was Josh Morrissey, a more defensively oriented player. While Trouba excelled at creation in the offensive zone, his partner was more inclined to prevent zone entries and transition to offense successfully.
Their possession stats as a pair, 51.4 Corsi For Percentage (CF%) and 50.6 expected goals for (XGF%) percentage are better than any Ranger’s defensive pair from the past two seasons. CF% is the percentage of scoring chances that a team generates at even strength with the player(s) on the ice. XGF% is the percentage of expected goals that a pair would be expected to generate based on scoring chances.
However, one of the drawbacks to Trouba’s style of play is his necessity to shoot at volume. Since the majority of a defenseman’s scoring chances come from a distance, they are lower quality and therefore a worse decision than passing to a teammate or cycling the puck.
In fact, Trouba shot so often, he had a negative impact on his team’s expected goals for, according to Travis Yost of TSN. This is even more concerning when you realize the talent that the former Jet played with up in Winnipeg. On a less talented Rangers’ team, Trouba may be inclined to take even more shots.
The number one
Before getting to the nitty-gritty, it’s worth pointing out that Trouba played first pair minutes in Winnipeg due to injury. When Dustin Byfuglien went down with a back injury, it made Trouba play minutes against the other team’s best. This should give the Rangers’ coaching staff confidence that he could do the same in New York if complemented properly.
Based on recent history, it’s likely that Minnesota native Brady Skjei and former United States National Development Team teammate Trouba will start the season together. Yet, Skjei’s struggles at holding his own blue line are similar to Trouba’s meaning that it’d be an all or nothing defensive pair focused on offense.
Trouba’s skills have some overlap with both restricted free agent Tony DeAngelo and Harvard product Adam Fox. As right-handed shots with soft hands and decent skating ability, both DeAngelo and Fox should be contributors this season as well. Assuming that DeAngelo and the Rangers get a contract worked out, the right side should be well staffed.
This brings us to maximizing Trouba’s value based on what the Rangers need. In terms of pure talent, the former Jet is New York’s best piece on the blueline come opening night. Based on Trouba’s ability at even strength to drive possession, New York should look to maximize his usage in those situations.
Instead of dedicating three minutes or more of Trouba’s nightly time on ice to the man advantage, that time should go to one of Fox, DeAngelo or if he’s still with the team, Kevin Shattenkirk. The Rangers will be a better team in transition this year due to the influx of new talent which should only make Trouba more effective at even strength.
If Trouba is truly going to be the number one defenseman for the interim, he needs to shut down the other team’s best players. Allocating time on ice to the powerplay isn’t maximizing his skillset when there are other players on the roster who can do the job in a similar way. Throw in Trouba’s habit of overshooting and turning over possession and this starts to make more sense.
The Rangers’ powerplay struggled when McDonagh was shoehorned into first power-play unit minutes because of his other responsibilities. If Trouba’s points were to dip but he effectively defended his own zone, it’d be a worthy sacrifice. New York’s going to be a team that thrives in transition through its young defensemen.
This may be a case of overthinking, but based on what the Rangers need, Trouba as an even strength and penalty killing only defenseman makes more sense than either DeAngelo, Fox or Shattenkirk killing penalties when they’d be able to reasonably replicate his power-play production.