GREENBURGH, N.Y. -- Jacob Trouba will not play for the New York Rangers against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday for roster management purposes, and his future with the team is unclear.
The Rangers captain could be traded before the game against the Penguins at Madison Square Garden (7:30 p.m. ET; HULU, ESPN+, TVAS-D, SNW, SNO, SNE). Coach Peter Laviolette said Friday that the team has decided to move in a different direction.
Trouba has one more season remaining on the seven-year, $56 million contract ($8 million average annual value) he signed with the Rangers as a restricted free agent on July 19, 2019, after he was traded from Winnipeg Jets.
The Rangers recalled Victor Mancini from Hartford of the American Hockey League on Friday. He is expected to play against the Penguins.
“I think our team needs a direction,” Laviolette said. “We’re not playing well right now. I think when you’re not having the success that you want there has to be a direction that moves differently. This was the decision.”
New York (13-10-1) is 1-6-0 in its past seven games, including a 5-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils on Monday, when Trouba played 16:45 in what could be the last of his 364 games with the Rangers.
He played a season-low 13:37 in a 4-3 win against the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday.
Laviolette said he and general manager Chris Drury are “together in our thoughts” on the direction of the team and the decision being made with Trouba.
“It’s not meant to be a message (to the rest of the team),” Laviolette said. “I think everybody is understanding of where we’ve been for the last month and how we’ve played. We can’t continue down that road or we’ll find ourselves out of the playoffs. The best thing is we need to set a path that can move us back up in the standings and we haven’t played well. I didn’t view it like that, but it is a change.”
Trouba, 30, has been the captain of the Rangers since the start of the 2022-23 season. This is his sixth season with New York after he played his first six for Winnipeg.
He helped the Rangers reach the Eastern Conference Final twice in the past three seasons. Trouba has six points (all assists) in 24 games this season and is averaging 20:00 of ice time per game.
New York, though, has hit hard times, going allowing 4.14 goals per game in the past seven and scoring an average of 2.14, each second-worst in the NHL in that span.
“I mean, I can’t say it’s not tough, especially with coming in and you’re preparing for a game and you get to know about it,” Rangers center Mika Zibanejad said. “I don’t know what the book says about how you handle these things and what you do, but until there’s more information we’ve just got to try to focus on the game tonight. It’s a big one for us. We need to get a win. We’ll deal with that later.”
