ESPN Reports: One of the reasons Jacob Trouba is still with the Rangers is because his wife is a……Read More

Jacob Trouba is the current and likely future captain of the New York Rangers. After No. 8 sent general manager Chris Drury his no-trade list of fifteen teams by Monday, the much-anticipated trade to Detroit never happened. Contrary to what was reported on Saturday, sources now say that the plan in which the Blueshirts would keep $2.5 million of Trouba’s $8 million cap charge per year for the next two years was never seriously considered. Rumor has it that Trouba did not actually reject the deal. The Rangers failed to strengthen their defense on Monday, the first day of free agency. Erik Gustafsson, the team’s sixth defenseman, actually signed a two-year, $2 million contract with the Red Wings. On the left side of the depth chart, you can see Zac Jones’s ascent to the third pair.

As soon as Trouba’s hypothetical departure was mentioned, other defensemen who could have stepped in to fill the blue line void were removed from consideration. Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Chris Tanev traveled to Toronto. The Devils acquired the services of Brett Pesce and Brenden Dillon. Zadorov Nikita became a member of the Bruins. In order to free up a ton of salary cap space, the Rangers might try to trade for Trouba, but they don’t have many valuable assets to offer as a replacement. No one on the roster is prepared to replace starters in the top six. According to what The Post has gathered, there is another variable that could prolong the 30-year-old’s tenure on Broadway.

The five-year no-movement clause in Trouba’s current seven-year, $56 million contract was meant to expire when his wife Kelly Tyson-Trouba finished her three-year residency at a New York hospital. He was acquired as a pending restricted free agent from Winnipeg in July of 2019. But Dr. Tyson-Trouba’s residency was deferred for a year at the start so that the program which she is required to complete will end instead on July 1, 2025. The Troubas also welcomed their first child, a boy named Axel, in mid-January. There is no guarantee that Jacob Trouba would accept a trade even to a club on his approved list if that means leaving his wife and nine-month-old (as of training camp) behind. It is not as if Dr. Tyson-Trouba can pick up, transfer her credits to another hospital, accompany her spouse and still be licensed as a physician.

We are informed it has been part of the league-wide talk, with several teams who otherwise would have been in big-time on Trouba now likely to wait until next year when Dr. Tyson-Trouba’s residency expires with the defenseman having one last season on his deal. Sources suggest that interactions between Trouba, his camp and Drury and management have been professional without anger that would infect or negatively damage the defenseman’s duties as captain. If nothing further develops, it might become a one-sentence Q&A the first day of training camp.