Vincent Trocheck plays the game of hockey with a distinct chip on his shoulder. He’s got equal parts attitude, skill, toughness and tenacity.
As if Trocheck didn’t already have plenty of motivation after the Rangers faceplanted and failed to make the playoffs this season, there comes this unfair snub by his peers in the NHL.
In the annual NHLPA players poll released Tuesday, Trocheck somehow failed to garner enough votes to land in the top-five for this question: If you need to win a face-off, who would you pick?
Lest you forget, like many of his 663 brethren polled here obviously did, Trocheck leads all NHL players with at least 1,000 face-offs taken this season with a 59.4 percent winning percentage. Remarkably consistent, Trocheck’s won 62.7 percent of his power-play draws, 59.2 percent at even strength and 57.3 percent on the penalty kill.
For three years on Broadway, Trocheck has taken pretty much every important face-off for the Rangers, when there’s a choice and opportunity to do so. Plus, he’s only gotten better. He won 56.1 percent of his face-offs in 2022-23 and 58.7 percent last season, when he was second in the League behind John Tavares of the Toronto Maple Leafs (59.3 percent).
The players voted Pittsburgh Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby as the one they’d want to win a face-off by a wide margin over Ryan O’Reilly of the Nashville Predators (20.39 percent of the vote to 9.95 percent). Listen, hard to argue with Crosby as the choice. No NHL player has taken more face-offs period the past two seasons than Crosby, and let’s face it, he’s won a boatload of massive draws on the biggest of stages — Stanley Cup Finals, Olympics — in his career.
But Trocheck didn’t even squeeze into the top-five. He was beaten out by O’Reilly, Anze Kopitar (Los Angeles Kings), Jordan Staal (Carolina Hurricanes) and Aleksander Barkov (Florida Panthers).
Hard to quibble with that group, though, of course, the numbers tell you that Trocheck is more successful than each of these players.
The one thing that group has in common and where Trocheck doesn’t fit in? Each has at least one Stanley Cup ring, meaning all five of those choices have won important draws in the most important games. Trocheck has never played in the Stanley Cup Final, much less won a championship.
With the Rangers missing the playoffs this season, their 31-year-old center won’t have the chance to level that playing field this spring. But it says here, he shouldn’t have to. At worst, Trocheck is worthy of sitting in the top-five in this category.
Igor Shesterkin of Rangers voted as second-best overall goalie in NHLPA poll
No Rangers player won any of the 10 categories voted on by members of the NHLPA. Adam Fox did land in the top-five in two separate categories — best overall defenseman (fifth; 1.71 percent of the vote) and smartest overall player (fifth; 3.62 percent).
The highest-placed finisher was Igor Shesterkin, who finished second to Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning as the best overall goaltender in the NHL. The Rangers goalie was narrowly beaten out by the two-time Stanley Cup winner, 31.13 percent of the vote to 23.58 percent. Connor Hellebuyck (Winnipeg Jets), Sergei Bobrovsky (Florida Panthers) and Juuse Saros (Nashville Predators) rounded out that top-five.
Artemi Panarin finished fourth as the best overall playmaker in the League, with 5.08 percent of the vote. Nikita Kucherov of the Lightning was the overwhelming top choice in tis category, grabbing 48.25 percent of the vote, more than double Edmonton Oilers superstar Connor McDavid (20.16 percent).
Two former Rangers players headed up a unique category: Who would be a good broadcaster when they retire? The winner was Pittsburgh Penguins forward Kevin Hayes and the runner-up was Ryan Strome of the Anaheim Ducks.
