Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Trocheck is lone Panther selected for this year’s NHL All-Star Game
The NHL All-Star team was announced by the league Tuesday, and the Florida Panthers' only representative will be center Vincent Trocheck.
Trocheck, 23, a first-time All-Star, is coming off a career-best season in which he had 25 goals and 53 points, both career highs, in 76 games.
In addition to playing in the All-Star game on Jan. 29, Trocheck will also participate in the All-Star Skills Competition on Jan. 28.
Trocheck, who signed a $28.5 million contract extension over the summer, made the team while future Hall of Famers goalie Roberto Luongo and forward Jaromir Jagr, who both made the All-Star team last year, did not.
This season, Trocheck, a Pittsburgh native, has moved up to the top line alongside Jagr his boyhood hero who starred for the Pittsburgh Penguins in the ’90s, after an injury recently sidelined Aleksander Barkov. Trocheck scored his 12th goal, an empty-netter, in Monday’s 3-0 victory over the New Jersey Devils, which tied him for the team lead with Jonathan Marchessault.
Trocheck also has 12 assists for 24 points, three behind Barkov’s team-leading 27. He has a game-winning goal in regulation and another in overtime. The feisty 5-foot-10 Trocheck leads the team with 104 hits. He also leads Panthers forwards with 119 shots on net and time-on-ice, averaging a career-high 21:35.
A staple on both special teams, Trocheck has seven power-play points and is 12th in the NHL in faceoffs won while shorthanded. Trocheck has a solid 50.7 faceoff win percentage, and is seventh in the NHL with 453 faceoff wins.
Eleven players are chosen from each division and every team must have at least one representative. Last year, the Panthers sent defenseman Aaron Ekblad, Luongo and Jagr, who was voted in by the fans as the Atlantic Division captain.
Panthers players enjoyed a day off with their fathers in New York, and didn’t make Trocheck available to the media.