From feeling like he’s dying to putting up good scoring numbers in what is likely his final season in New York, Vincent Trocheck had a confusing 2025-2026 season. On the surface, Trocheck’s 16 goals and 37 assists over 67 games is pretty solid and consistent with his on-ice expectations. But dig deeper, and the same concerns with JT Miller’s season appear in Vincent Trocheck’s season. A lead on the team, Trocheck simply did not deliver in that role, contributing to the team’s freefall in the standings through New Year’s.
Over an 82 game season, Trocheck’s scoring line averages out to 20-45-65. That is certainly a nice rebound season in scoring, up from his 59 points in 2024-2025. But it felt like his overall impact had stalled and his role as a leader had gone stale.
To be fair, that lung infection he had probably impacted his play on the ice a bit. Given that we are all human, I’d assume this impacted him off the ice too, since he was on record saying he felt like he was dying. It would be unfair evaluation to assume he was perfectly fine both before and after his hospitalization.
Contrary to his reputation, Vincent Trocheck is not good defensively, and hasn’t been for a while. His metrics have been like this for a while. Unfortunately his reputation–one of the reasons why he was selected for a primarily defensive role with Mike Sullivan on Team USA–overtook results on the ice and he actually saw an increase in defensive zone starts and a decrease in offensive zone starts.
Again to be fair, this was likely because Mika Zibanejad was shifted away from being the Rangers shutdown center getting defensive zone starts. It worked for Zibanejad, and Trocheck’s defensive numbers crumbled but he was still productive. Not the best case scenario, but it worked, sort of.
On the bright side, Vincent Trocheck did manage to disprove many that his production was a product of Artemi Panarin. Following Panarin’s trade, Trocheck scored just 5 goals 15 assists in 28 games. Before the Panarin trade, Trocheck put up 11-17-28 in 39 games. This is essentially a wash, with Trocheck becoming more of a playmaker while playing with Will Cuylle and Adam Sykora at 5v5.
All in all, Vincent Trocheck’s (likely) final season with the Rangers was a mixed bag. He had a fine scoring line, but his other impacts fell off a cliff. By the time March and April came around, it felt like he was coasting. Emphasis on felt like, not necessarily was coasting. Still, with so much negative attention on the Rangers’ leadership group, Trocheck didn’t do much to help.