Reason #4: Advanced Statistics
The New York Rangers confounded the advanced statistics fans all season, taking fewer shots and spending less time with possession than any contending team. It’s still worth looking at analytics and it’s another case where Trocheck wins out. His career Corsi rating at 5v5 is 52.4% and he improved to 55% in his time with the Hurricanes. Kadri’s Corsi-For rating in his career is 51% though he was a possession beast with Colorado for the last two seasons with a 55.1% Corsi-For rating.
Andrew Copp’s career rating is 50.8% but he dominated in his brief stint with the Rangers, drawing a 58.3% Corsi For rating. Strome lagged behind with a 49.5% Corsi For career rating at 5v5. That number was worse for Strome with the Rangers, dropping to 48.1%.
Reason #5: Physical play
Vincent Trocheck is a hitter, fulfilling the “hard to play against” mandate. He was third on the Hurricanes with 185 hits, a number that placed him ninth overall among NHL centers. While Ryan Reaves led the Rangers with 279 hits, their center with the most hits was Barclay Goodrow with 130.
Compare that to Ryan Strome with 41 hits and Andrew Copp with 45 hits for the Jets and Rangers. Nazem Kadri has a reputation as a physical presence, but he registered only 52 hits this season for the Avalanche.
Since becoming an NHL regular in 2015-16, Trocheck has 939 hits, the ninth most among all NHL centers in that time span.
Reason #6: Age
Trocheck turned 29 on July 11 and he shares the same birthdate as Ryan Strome. Compare that to Kadri who turns 32 in October. Only Andrew Copp is younger as he turned 28 in July. While signing Trocheck for seven years may be too long, the Flames will have a 38-year-old Kadri to contend with in 2028.
Strome and Copp both signed for five years, no doubt a term that Drury would have liked so that makes the deal a little less favorable to the Blueshirts.
Those are some pretty good reasons, but there are some intangibles as well.