Today, the New York Rangers resigned defenseman Jacob Trouba to a seven-year, $56 million deal that carries an AAV of $8 million a season. Last year, he appeared in 82 games for the Winnipeg Jets, in which he recorded eight goals and 42 assists. He then appeared in six playoff games for the team, but scored zero goals and tallied just one assist in them. Over his NHL career, he has laced up his skates 408 times and produced 179 points. The 25-year-old defenseman was drafted ninth overall in 2012 by the Winnipeg Jets, and the Rangers are just the second team he has played for over his seven season NHL career.
His seven-year contract breaks down as follows:
2019-20 – $4M Base + $8M SB
2020-21 – $2M Base + $8M SB
2021-22 – $2M Base + $6M SB
2022-23 – $6M Base
2023-24 – $8M Base
2024-25 – $6M Base
2025-26 – $6M Base
He has a full NMC starting in 2020-21 and ending in 2023-24, when it then transitions into an M-NTC (15 team no trade list) in 2024-25 and an M-NTC (12 teams) for 2025-26.
Stephen’s Reaction: This is a joke. He is not worth $8 million a season. Brent Burns, who is always in the running for Norris, MAKES $8 MILLION A SEASON. Doug Wilson > Jeff Gorton
Lydia’s Reaction: As Stephen said, this is a terrible contract. Trouba is worth nowheres near this much money. Jeff Gorton has effectively thrown all plans of a rebuild out the window to try and compete now, but has set his team up to enter cap hell not too far down the line when Panarin and Trouba decline, yet they have $20 million tied up in them. They are paying him to be a near-elite number one defenseman, and Trouba has yet to prove he can even be an average number one defenseman. What was he thinking here? This makes Erik Karlsson (I would’ve used Burns here as it’s a better example had Stephen not) look like a complete steal for $11.5 million. Think about it Rangers fans, for another $3.5 million, you could’ve had Karlsson. Wouldn’t that be nice? I just don’t get it. Not even two years ago, the Rangers said they were going into a rebuild, yet they never fully committed to it. This will look like a lot of regret in a few years when their young players break out and command hefty contracts but they don’t have the cap space for them. It’s not like you can even trade him, as he has a no-move clause or no-trade clause in all but the first year as detailed above, and the no-trade clause gets more restrictive as it goes on. Just a bad signing by Gorton, yet it was overshadowed and saved from some ridicule by the completely insane Calgary-Edmonton trade, which I wrote about in another post. Have fun in cap hell down the road New York!
Hockey Addict 