Captain Jacob Trouba’s Catastrophic Postseason Costs the New York Rangers
By Conor Power
This postseason was loaded with disappointments and underachievers for the New York Rangers. A lot of the major forwards did not play up to the level that has become expected of them; Adam Fox didn't play at his usual level (though he was probably dealing with an injury after the knee-on-knee hit with Nick Jensen in the Washington series). Still, by far the largest disappointment, both in terms of disappointment and size of the player, is New York Rangers captain Jacob Trouba.
By all accounts, Trouba is a wonderful person off the ice. I have no reason to doubt this. He's always been seen doing the right things with fans and acting with the utmost professionalism. The issue with Trouba has nothing to do with him as a person; it's how poor his play was and has been for the Rangers. He's talked about for his borderline hits, and this year was a new low for the Blueshirts captain.
With another fine for elbowing and two missed elbow attempts in the Hurricanes series, he was constantly trying to chicken-wing opponents, and it's not good enough. He missed for the most part, but if he connects and gets penalized or suspended, he puts his team at a disadvantage. That behavior wasn't good enough for someone supposed to be a leader for this young group of players.
This is before we get to his play. The goal that opened the scoring in game six saw Trouba wander to the boards. Bennett then wired a perfect shot home off the bar, but it was created because Trouba saw a shiny thing along the boards and wanted to abandon his position, blocking the shooting lane and trying to close down the angle of the Bennett shot.
You can pick any number of times he did that this postseason—almost every one of the Carolina Hurricanes goals in round two game with Trouba on the ice. If we turn to Natural Stat Trick to look at the analytics, Trouba had 2.25 goals per 60 (GF/60), which is fine, and 2.47 goals against sixty (GA/60), for 47.62 goals per percentage (GF%). It's fine, but it's below average. Compare this to Adam Fox, who was playing hurt. Fox had a 2.2 GF/60 but a 1.54 GA/60 and a 28.82 GF%. Fox had one leg.
If you look at the expected stats, Trouba had 2.27 expected goals per 60 (xGF/60), 2.80 expected goals against 60 (xGA/60), and 44.80 expected goals for percentage (xGF%). That is bordering on unusable. xGF% should be around 50% for third-pairing D men, and you want closer to 60 for the elite guys. Trouba was almost unusable. That's the Rangers captain.
You may be an old-timer and don't like the fancy stats. Trouba had a goal and six assists for seven points but was a net 0. His goal was shorthanded, so it doesn't impact his +/-, so there were something like six times he was on the ice for a goal against. This doesn't include how poor he was on the penalty kill, either. This is for a player that makes $8 million for the next two years. It's not an acceptable performance for a Ranger captain.
What do you do with Trouba? His no-movement clause drops to a modified no-trade clause on July 1st, where he will get to block trades to 15 teams in the NHL for the upcoming season, so you can find someone to take him, but it's unlikely. No one will want someone that poor to make that much money. The buyout is an option, but there isn't much point with just two years left.