4:29PM: The Rangers are acquiring defenseman Sean Durzi, 20-year old center prospect Cole Beaudoin and a third round pick in 2027.
Beaudoin was the 24th overall pick in 2024.
Durzi, 27, is signed for two more seasons at $6 million per season. He is a right-shot defenseman.
4:21 PM: The Rangers are trading Vincent Trocheck to Utah. (Friedman)
Utah has been reportedly interested in Trocheck for a while.
It was suspected that Trocheck’s preference was to stay in the East. His no-trade clause dropped from 12 to 10 today.
4:38PM: On NHL Network, Elliotte Friedman said “I think Utah was one of the teams he couldn’t be dealt to. Utah has been after him for quite some time, they tried last year during the regular season and Trocheck, for family reasons, his preference was to be East and a lot of his no-trade list were Western teams. I guess Utah was persistent and I think he was a player that was ready for a change, ready to go somewhere else and try something new and ultimately Utah wore him down and convinced him to do it. It is a big return, Sean Durzi is a very good defenseman, a real puck mover and that Cole Beaudoin, people who saw him in the playoffs last year playing for Barrie, that is a really competitive, talented kid. The Rangers will probably look at it and say that they have a couple of defense pair because they are also working on acquiring Marcus Pettersson from Vancouver Canucks, but ultimately Beaudoin is the guy they are going to hope is going to be a Ranger for a long time and he has a chance to be, he’s a talented kid.”
Asked if he thought that this is the kind of return he was expecting for Trocheck, Friedman said “I do, I think that is about what I thought it was going to be, something like that. I wasn’t necessarily sure about Durzi but I was expecting a name like Beaudoin to be in the return, I think that was important for NY, they have to inject some youth into their roster, they have to get some good young players who can make an impact and when I heard that name I thought that it was the kind of player the Rangers were looking for.”
Adam Rotter: So there it is and the Rangers bring back a top-four defenseman in Durzi and a player in Beaudoin that had a big season in juniors and is ready to turn pro. It’s a different kind of deal than was expected as I didn’t expect Durzi or any defenseman to come back, but if Drury wanted a player off your roster and a top prospect then I think he got what wanted.
Durzi will slot in on the second pair, likely next to the newly acquired Marcus Pettersson and provide the Rangers with a puck moving right shot defenseman who can play 18-20 minutes plus per game. Adam Fox will stay as the Rangers primary offensive defenseman and PP QB, but Durzi will likely be on the second PP and help the Rangers at even strength.
In Beaudoin the Rangers seem to have acquired someone that projects similarly to what Vincent Trocheck was. Maybe he develops into a good top-six center or maybe he’s just a middle-six center that the Rangers can rely on for a long time.
The expectation was that the Rangers wanted a first for Trocheck but Beaudoin was a first rounder two-years ago and so they end up with a third.
From the Trocheck side of things, it’s good that this didn’t linger through the summer. We don’t know if Trocheck waived to go to Utah or if Utah was a team the Rangers could trade him to without his consent. I’d guess that Drury was working with Trocheck’s new agent Pat Brisson throughout the process and so Utah can’t be that much of a surprise, but the semantics of whether he did or didn’t waive will come out at some point.
Trocheck was a really good player in his four years. He became a big part of the leadership group, was awesome in the playoffs in 2024 and you can definitely argue that the best version of the Rangers next season included Trocheck. But he’s 32, had three more years left on his contract, is coming off an Olympics where he accepted a role and helped win a Gold Medal and was likely going to see a dip in production without Artemi Panarin as his primary linemate. This was the right time to move on and the Rangers added a lot that should help them next year and beyond.