10 things on the New York Rangers Christmas wishlist

A Captain’s turnaround

This has not been the best season of Jacob Trouba’s career. If you find this to be revolutionary or have a reason you want to debate this, I’m not exactly sure what to say. By almost everyone’s standards, the newest captain of the New York Rangers has struggled since the C was put on his chest. I’m not arguing that the reason he has struggled is that he is the captain, but he’s having issues.

For the Rangers leader, times have been tough. Although recently he has started to have more to offer, Trouba looks like he doesn’t know where to position himself without the puck and he looks slow. Being slow and not knowing where to be defensively is not a good combination for the fastest sport in the world. Trouba’s struggles have really hurt the Rangers. When Trouba is playing well, he’s a really good player to have on the roster.

If Trouba can get back to being a physical menace while at least providing some support in his own zone then the New York Rangers are quickly going to start to look a lot better. There’s no need to ask the captain to stop playing the way he does, but it’s starting to greatly hamper the team. According to the Athletic, Trouba was one of the few Rangers that is gravely underperforming his deal this season.

He’s only recently scored his first goal of the season on a netminder at the time of writing this so if he can continue to get better as the season goes along and improve defensively, he could really help this team. His leadership qualities are undoubted, but his diminishing on-ice play has been crippling early, despite the Rangers’ recent return to form with the winning streak they are on.