Trouba seems poised in Year 2 as Rangers’ captain
TARRYTOWN - As Jacob Trouba scanned his phone following last season’s memorable outburst and helmet toss, there was one particular message that caught his eye.
The sender, it’s fair to say, knows him as well as anyone. “My mom text me after that and said that’s the first time she’s ever seen me throw something out of anger,” the Rangers’ captain recalled with a smile following Wednesday’s practice at the MSG Training Center. “That’s not really me.”
Trouba noted his uncharacteristic reaction “wasn’t planned,” rather a raw display of emotion and frustration.
The cause was a Dec. 3 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks, which marked the Rangers’ low point of the 2022-23 season and became a rallying cry. From that point forward, New York rattled off seven straight wins and never fell out of a playoff spot again.
Nearly a year later, Trouba downplays his influence on the turnaround, saying, “It looked like that just because of the record afterwards.” But some of his teammates, unprompted, still bring it up to this day.
“You can go back to last year with the helmet toss,” defenseman Braden Schneider said while discussing Trouba’s growth as captain. “It’s something that you see and it’s like, ‘We’ve got to wake up. He’s putting everything out there and we’ve got to follow suit.’ That’s obviously one extreme example, but there are plenty of times, I think, daily and in every single game, that you can see he’s putting himself out there and we know we need to follow his lead.”
Those examples accumulated during Trouba’s first year as a captain and continue as he carries a more noticeable air of confidence in year two.
Many of them, he says, occur discreetly.
“I don’t think a lot of the public stuff that’s said or done is really the meat of leadership,” No. 8 said. “There’s a lot more that goes on behind the scenes that I think is more important.”
After four-and-a-half seasons without a defined leader, team president Chris Drury and former head coach Gerard Gallant decided it was time.
A press conference was held Aug. 9, 2022 announcing Trouba as the 28th captain in franchise history.
This may have come as a slight surprise on the outside, particularly with longer-tenured players such as Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad still on the roster, but not so much to those on the inside.
“The comfort level is there,” Zibanejad said. “Even before he got the ‘C,’ he was kind of our captain already.”
This summer, Trouba reunited with the captain he learned the most from before wearing the “C” himself.
From the moment he arrived in Winnipeg in 2013, he gravitated toward Blake Wheeler, who was happy to take the then-19-year-old rookie under his wing.
“There’s a connection there,” said Wheeler, who signed a one-year deal with the Rangers in July after receiving a sales pitch from Trouba. “He’s American, a college hockey guy, and we spend time together in Florida in the summers. We’re geographically pretty close down in Florida in the offseason, so we’ve trained together, we golf together, have dinners together, our wives are really good friends. He’s just a guy who was always great to be around, even from a young age.”
“There’s a big age difference between the two of us, but I always enjoyed his company and just enjoyed working with him and just kind of seeing the development,” the 37year-old added. “When you get to my age, the best part of the league is watching the guys you’ve seen as young players grow into being elite and leaders and captains and all that kind of stuff.”
Now their roles are reversed, with Wheeler entering a locker room where Trouba is established as a veteran many young players look up to.
He’s been most impressed with Trouba’s “unflappable demeanor,” which differs from his own leadership style.
“I’m more emotional than Jacob is, so I think I would often let my emotions drive me – whether it’s on the ice or how I reacted to a situation,” Wheeler said. “He’s able to act from a bit more of a (place) where he always kind of has it together, I guess, is a good way to put it . ... He’s able to slow down, no matter the situation, and be thoughtful with how he approaches things.”
While there are many facets to leadership, most teammates say Trouba’s biggest impact comes from simply watching the way he plays the game.
“It starts on the ice,” Goodrow said. “He’s a guy that works extremely hard and puts his body on the line every game, every practice. Whenever you see the captain doing that, there’s no excuse for every other guy on the team to not do those things.”
All the blocked shots and jarring hits have created an outside reputation of Trouba as a brute whose main focus is punishing opponents. But those who know the man paint a gentler picture.
He’s into art and music that’s much softer than the way he plays. He gets emotional talking about his wife, Kelly, and her career as a doctor, which should only intensify with the couple preparing for the arrival of their first child. And he’s introspective when assessing his own leadership tactics.
“He’s a guy who is very self-aware and self-evaluates himself,” Zibanejad said. “He has a mixture of being able to lead on and off the ice – sometimes with his words, but also sometimes just his body language and the way he carries himself.”
Having a full year as captain under his belt has allowed Trouba important time to reflect and gain comfort in the demanding role.
Now, he feels he can “just go about my business” without “trying to reinvent anything.” The wheels are well in motion for the culture he’s trying to develop, allowing him to “just be yourself and do what’s right.”
That could lead to improved play, as well.
After putting together his best season with the Rangers in 2021-22, there was a noticeable step back in his first year as captain. Trouba was on ice for more five-on-five goals against (jumping from 51to 69) while producing fewer points (from 39 down to 30), but the early returns in 2023-24 are trending back in the right direction.
The hope is that Year 2 with the “C” will come with fewer off-ice distractions, with Trouba already looking more at ease than he has in any of his previous four seasons in New York.
By all accounts, he’s settling into his pressure-packed role quite nicely.
“Guys really gravitate towards a guy who seems unshaken no matter the situation,” Wheeler said. “If things are good or bad, he’s pretty even keeled. There’s a tremendous amount of respect for him throughout the room. You can just tell that guys really look up to him, which is pretty cool to see.”