The Rangers locker room’s poor reception of the way Barclay Goodrow was waived and the way Jacob Trouba was shopped last offseason was well documented.
It was not only widely reported in the immediate aftermath, but it was evident in just the feeling inside MSG Training Center on the very first day of training camp. Goodrow may have been on the other side of the country beginning his season in San Jose, after the Blueshirts circumvented his 15-team no-trade list in a prearranged deal with the Sharks, but Trouba had to come back into the room and serve as the captain of the team that just tried to get rid of him.
Players always like to say it’s part of the business, but there was clearly a disconnect between management and the team with regard to how that business was handled.
“I mean, even Troubs admitting it was hard for him to kind of lead this team in his situation,” Adam Fox said on Monday. “Maybe a lot of it is subconscious, too. You don’t really think, but I guess when your captain has that thought and feels that way. It’s a guy that has changed games for us in terms of the energy he’s brought and being able to change it with a hit or a fight. I think sometimes that could affect the team that sees that. He was open with us about it. Even throughout the communication, with Lavy talking to us, Dru talking to us, I think it’s been there.
“But, again, it’s also New York and there’s always going to be noise. Especially when we’re not performing how we’re going to be, it tends to really take over. I think it didn’t help, but we also as players, we’re not going to blame missing the playoffs on that.”
The way the remaining Rangers talked about Goodrow and Trouba on breakup day, however, suggests the season was doomed from the start because of what happened with those two players.
It seemed to take up so much air inside the room and made it even more difficult to move on from. Since Trouba remained with the Rangers until he was traded to Anaheim on Dec. 6, his outward expression of frustration with management lingered as well.
Chris Kreider said at a certain point it becomes a distraction. He cited the team dynamic and how it changed the environment. It was challenging, he noted.
“I can’t speak to everyone else, I think everyone deals with it differently,” Mika Zibanejad said of how last offseason’s headlines impacted the room. “Everyone has a different relationship to it. But, when it happens, frustration. I think it’s just when you don’t know everything. You don’t know what’s going on. Obviously, we don’t have control over that kind of stuff, but it’s still something that, you know, we talked about or we have to go through. It’s two of our leaders.
“It’s our captain, assistant captain. Big parts of our locker room, so of course it shakes things around a bit.”
As a result, communication within the organization was naturally a topic of conversation on breakup day, as well. Four players — Kaapo Kakko, Jimmy Vesey, Zac Jones and Calvin de Haan — spoke out to express their issues with their role at different points of the season.
While Kakko is beginning his offseason in Seattle and Vesey served as a healthy scratch through his first two playoff games with the Avalanche, Jones said he stood by what he said about “rotting away” in a depth role with the Rangers.
The 33-year-old de Haan, whose frustrations with what was ultimately 20 straight healthy scratches boiled over at an optional practice in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said he was under the impression he would play when he came to New York as part of the deal that sent Lindgren and Vesey to Colorado.
In noting that he thought communication could’ve been better, de Haan said he was “never really given a direct answer as to why.”
During his end-of-season conference call with the media, president and general manager Chris Drury assured that ex-head coach Peter Laviolette was big on communication and told each player why they were or weren’t playing.
“I think it’s on us, inside this room, in order to make sure that the outside noise doesn’t get to us,” Vincent Trocheck said. “Whether that’s talking to somebody individually or if it’s just sticking together as a team and as a family and I think we can get better at that. Lifting guys up instead of bringing guys down, I think that goes a long way.”
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