Vincent Trocheck Turns Down Two Teams in Western Conference
We've heard the reports for a while now—New York Rangers' sought-after trade piece Vincent Trocheck wants to stay in the East. And he's not pulling any punches about this demand.
I think there's a couple of far west teams that have gotten in on him, and I've been told that it won't be happening... His preference is east, and a couple of west teams have been told he's not going out there.
It would be pretty easy to speculate on at least one of those "far west" teams. The Los Angeles Kings are desperate for offense after losing Kevin Fiala for the season, and now seeing Andrei Kuzmenko go down to injury as well.
The fit in LA would be obvious. In addition to the injuries, the Kings are near the bottom in league offense, and could also use the two-way center's help on the penalty kill. Friedman said as recently as this past week that he thinks the Kings "like" Trocheck. And besides, they have his former Rangers teammate now, Artemi Panarin.
Trocheck turning away all Western-based teams in trade talks
As for the other potential "far west" team that was probably interested, it could have been the Seattle Kraken. This is a team that is always starved for some offensive punch, and we already learned that they made an insane extension offer to Panarin in trying to land him from New York.
Friedman also suggested the Utah Mammoth were interested.
The Pittsburgh-born Trocheck has been notably linked quite a bit in the past few weeks with the Minnesota Wild.
"Everyone talks about Minnesota," added Friedman. "They're not that far west, so maybe..." He added on Sunday afternoon that Carolina and Detroit are options as well.
Trocheck has three years to run on a $5.625M cap hit, and the 32-year-old center has 38 points in 45 games this season for the Blueshirts.
He has a 12-team no-trade list, and we can presume that most of those dozen clubs reside on the West Coast.
The 13-year veteran has spent his entire career on the East Coast, starting with seven seasons in South Florida with the Panthers, then two+ years in Raleigh with the Carolina Hurricanes, before signing in New York for the past four seasons.
Photo: © Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images
