The Rangers will be without a key player for at least the next little while. Mollie Walker of the New York Post relays (Twitter link) that center Vincent Trocheck is listed as out week-to-week with an upper-body injury.
The injury occurred during the second period of Thursday’s victory over Buffalo after a penalty killing shift with the team announcing soon after that he wouldn’t be returning to the game.
The 32-year-old has been a key cog down the middle for New York for several years now as a true two-way, all-situations player. Trocheck had his best offensive showing back in 2023-24 when he had 77 points in 82 games. While that output ticked down to 59 points last season, he managed to lead the NHL in shorthanded goals with six. He started the season anchoring the top line with the expectations that he’d once again be one of their top offensive performers.
In Trocheck’s absence, Mika Zibanejad’s move to the wing will be short-lived as he lined up in Trocheck’s center spot on the top line at practice today, per Newsday’s Colin Stephenson (Twitter link). Meanwhile, Juuso Parssinen appears to be set to make his season debut with a lineup spot opened up due to Trocheck’s injury.
How the Rangers try to replace Trocheck on the roster is intriguing. The team can place him on regular injured reserve, opening up a roster spot. However, they only have $842K in cap space at the moment, per PuckPedia, which isn’t enough to recall any of Brett Berard, Brennan Othmann, or Gabriel Perreault, the players they likely would want to give a chance to.
As long as Trocheck is set to miss 10 games and 24 days, he becomes eligible for LTIR which would allow them to then bring up one of those three players. However, they’d then stop accruing cap space, further cutting into their already limited flexibility on that front. Accordingly, it wouldn’t be surprising for them to opt not to bring anyone up to take his spot in the short term. That would give Parssinen (or Jonny Brodzinski, who’s also on the roster) a chance to make a mark while allowing them to bank enough regular space to recall a prospect over the next few weeks, keeping them out of LTIR altogether. Either way, they’ll be navigating through a significant loss in Trocheck for at least a few weeks.