Team: 2023-24 Detroit Red Wings

Initial Creation Date: May 16, 2023

Published: May 16, 2023

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

To all wings fans do you want trouba after this read at 8M chariot part 2? Mo is 9+ and Lucas 6-7 next year too. This is an article written by a rangers beat writer

Rangers fans, is this accurate?

I’ve absolutely had it with the intangibles discussion in hockey. Harping on non-measurable traits is a cop-out for poor talent evaluators to cling to outdated philosophies on the skillsets that matter. It’s great everyone likes Jacob Trouba, that he’s a swell guy.

He stinks at hockey.

That’s the end of the discussion for me.

Trouba has repeatedly shown an inability to make high level hockey plays. He was repeatedly too slow to catch up to Devil skaters, knocked off of pucks in his own zone, fired terrible shots into legs, at the glass and into the chest of the goalies.

The tangible impact Trouba has on the components of actually playing hockey: Offense, defense and transition are middling. He’s an average NHL defensemen who once had 50 points in a season on a good Winnipeg Jets team.

The Rangers’ as an organization have for whatever reason prioritized non-measurable traits and are getting what they deserve. Not only was Trouba ineffective as a hockey player, he was ineffective as a leader.

Hiring a player’s coach like Gallant means that it’s incumbent upon the veterans on the team to police poor play and lead the way by example.

Instead they get violent hits that feed a primitive hunger for bloodlust. The hockey men love Trouba because he’s a callback to the hockey they grew up watching and playing. He’s tall, he’s American, he’s well spoken. He’s the quintessential good American boy.

But, underneath all of that, Trouba wants to win. Being that he can’t influence the game by trying to play offense or defense, he has to throw predatory hits on susceptible opponents.

Don’t give me clean hit. I don’t care. No, it wasn’t a penalty, it won’t receive supplemental discipline, by rule, it’s clean. I don’t care. The only reason Trouba is throwing that hit on Devils’ winger Timo Meier is because he can’t do anything else to influence the game.

If he could make a positive offensive play or skate into good position to take away Meier’s ice to spring the team going the other way, he would.

Instead, Trouba has to feel like he’s contributing to the team. So he throws those brutal hits on guys who aren’t even looking. The “have your head up rhetoric,” is asinine. It’s the exact same rhetoric the gun lobby uses to justify arming the country to the teeth.

“Don’t be a victim,” they exclaim, “defend yourself.”

Trouba tucks his elbow in and uses his shoulder to inflict a car accident level impact in a 2-0 game. Notice how Trouba throws these hits in situations where he can hide behind the guise of “firing up the team.”

You know what would fire up the team?

A successful zone exit and a possession in the offensive zone that didn’t end in a shot that hit someone in the eighth row of the lower bowl.

I don’t particularly care that this is the way hockey has always been. To quote George Carlin “We made them up, like the Boogeyman, we can change them whenever we want.” Sure, Carlin was discussing the Bill of Rights, but the point remains.

Hockey doesn’t need to be ignorant of traumatic head injuries to provide entertainment. This is entertainment, pretending these types of plays are an unavoidable component of hockey is ignorant and reinforcing a victim blaming philosphy.

Naming Trouba captain was a validation of the 2021-2022 season. That he would be able to shepherd the group out of any trouble. Without a tactically competent coach, it was on Trouba and the rest of the leadership group to establish the right mindset and attitude for the entire season.

Instead, we got a season of “just wait for the playoffs,” you’ll see. Kinda like how I’m still waiting for Trouba the defensive defenseman to show up.