Vincent Trocheck sees how Rangers are ‘breeding a team’ that can win Stanley Cup
Rangers center Vincent Trocheck faces off with Post column Steve Serby for some Q&A:
Q: Do you consider yourself an agitator on the ice?
A: Maybe unintentionally. … I might get under guys’ skin. It’s not like I’m going out there trying to be a rat, it’s just sometimes it happens that way. I’m a competitor, and sometimes my competitiveness gets in the way of my friendliness.
Q: Do opponents say things to you about it?
A: I’ve been on three different teams now [previously with the Panthers and Hurricanes], and anytime I show up to a team I’m not the most well-liked from prior … encounters.
Q: You don’t seem to mind that.
A: Well, once they get to know me it’s a different story (smile).
Q: What kind of things do they say when they first meet you?
A: “I hated you.”
Q: How does that make you feel?
A: Fine. I’m cool with it.
Q: What drives you?
A: The love of the game. The desire to want to win a Stanley Cup.
Q: Is this team Stanley Cup championship material?
A: I think so, yeah.
Q: In what ways?
A: Just the makeup of the team. I think the veteran leadership, the culture that we’ve kind of started to put together, from management to coaching, the leadership down, just kind of breeding a team that wants to win a Stanley Cup, and bringing everybody together to have that togetherness to do so.
Q: What is it about the way this team plays that you really like?
A: When we’re playing our game, I think the ability to be so sound, and smart defensively, but at the same time have that killer instinct on offense.
Q: Have you been on teams that have this kind of killer instinct?
A: Offensively … no.
Q: Tell me how that manifests itself on the ice.
A: Just the ability that we have to put the puck in the net. The transition game we have to go from defense to offense quick is pretty special, and then our power play is clicking really at a rapid clip right now. Then we have some high-end superstar talent I think it takes to have that.
Q: What’s it like playing on the big New York stage for you?
A: It’s no different, once you’re out there it’s just a hockey game, but it’s definitely cool to have the history behind MSG.
Q: What’s it like having the Rangers fans on your side as opposed to being the enemy?
A: I mean, honestly, on both sides it’s cool to come in to MSG and play in front of these guys. It’s always high energy, loud, that’s what you want in a hockey game.
Q: How much pride do you take in faceoffs?
A: A lot.
Q: It always came naturally to you?
A: I’ve played center my whole life, so I’ve been taking faceoffs for a long time. I don’t know if that came naturally but when you do it for such a long period of time, it ends up coming naturally.
Q: Which do you enjoy more, the power play or penalty kill?
A: I enjoy the power play more, I would say, but I take pride in both a lot.
Q: Give me a scouting report on you.
A: Hard-working. Gritty player who has a grinder style with offensive ability to put the puck in the net … skill to play top-six, grit and competitiveness to have the grinder tag put on him. I don’t want to say that it’s a negative tag to have put on you as a grinder, it’s just I think I have that plus a lot of offensive ability.
Q: Do you think your offensive ability is overshadowed by your grinder reputation?
A: I don’t know. If it is, it doesn’t bother me.
Q: Not too many things bother you. Why is that?
A: Well, I got to where I am today, you know? So I must be doing something right.
Q: Let’s talk about some of your teammates: Adam Fox?
A: Really intelligent. Great patience. Sees the game better than most, if not better than all.
Q: Chris Kreider?
A: Hard-working, fast player. Great net front presence.
Q: Mika Zibanejad?
A: Great 200-foot player, high IQ, really hard shot. Good at pretty much everything.
Q: Alexis Lafreniere?
A: Competitive. High skilled. I guess you can say he reminds me of myself when I was his age, just really, really wants to win, and feel like he might get some flak in certain areas because of it — it might look negative, but it’s actually him just wanting to win, and for a guy with his skill and his high-end talent as a first-overall pick, he shows a lot of competitiveness, which I love.
Q: Artemi Panarin?
A: Superstar. Best player I’ve ever played with. … He just has the ability to kind of do whatever he wants on the ice when he has the puck, his vision, his shot, the way he can separate himself from defenders while not even trying to skate fast. He just has an incredible knack for creating plays.
Q: Jacob Trouba?
A: Hard-nosed. Good defender. Good leader.
Q: Your coach, Peter Laviolette?
A: Really good person. Has created a great culture in the short time that he’s been here.
Q: What’s it like centering for Panarin and Lafreniere?
A: It’s a blast. It’s fun. The three of us have a lot of fun on the ice, and we’re all competitive and want to have a hunger to put the puck in the net, and we’re always pushing each other to want more.
Q: Your son Leo is 5. Who’s his favorite Ranger?
A: He goes back and forth.
Q: Between?
A: A bunch of different guys. It’s typically not me, but Bread [Panarin], Laf, Jimmy [Vesey] are usually his go-to right now. Foxy [Adam Fox] is up there. I mean, he likes everybody, he’s not very picky.
Q: What position does he play?
A: He’s a forward, but he’s a rover at the moment.
Q: Would you want him to pursue hockey?
A: If he wants to, yeah.
Q: You’ve described your daughter Lennon as a firecracker.
A: Yeah, she’s nuts (smile). She’s got a lot of energy, and she’s definitely fiery.
Q: She takes after you?
A: I think she takes after her mother, but …
Q: Describe your wife Hillary for me.
A: She’s really outgoing, and great mother, very nurturing. Gets along with everybody. Great cook. She definitely has the competitive nature that I do, and she can be fiery at times, which is where I think my daughter gets it.
Q: Describe your mother’s battle with colon cancer and how it impacted you.
A: It’s tough to watch get go through a battle like that, but she’s extremely strong and didn’t really show any signs of having cancer ever. You kind of always knew that she was going to make it out.
Q: She’s fine now?
A: Yup, she’s five years cancer-free.
Q: Grandma Rose Caruso?
A: It’s my mom’s mom. Came over from Italy when she was 20. She was around all the time when I was a young kid. Phenomenal cook.
Q: How scary was it for you when you were stretchered off the ice five years ago as a Panther with a gruesome injury that required ankle surgery?
A: Extremely. It was scary. Obviously in the moment you don’t know how severe it is, and I didn’t know if I’d play hockey again at the time. I was fairly lucky, I’d say. Just broke a bone and didn’t have too much damage in the leg that needed repair, just the bone, so … Yeah that was a scary moment, and pretty s–tty time for quite a while after that.
Q: Emotionally?
A: Yeah, emotionally, the recovery, and getting back and being impatient and all that, then maybe coming back too soon, not having the jump that I did before. That whole time, it was a struggle.
Q: What have you learned about New York?
A: I’ve learned a lot about the suburbs. I guess I’ve always just looked at New York as the city and never really got to know the hominess of the suburbs.
Q: Favorite New York things?
A: New York delis … New York bagels … New York pizza.
Q: What’s your favorite 2017 All-Star Game memory?
A: I got to play on a line with [Nikita] Kucherov and [Victor] Hedman, that was pretty exciting.
Q: Did you get any autographs?
A: At least our whole Eastern Conference signed a plaque that I had.
Q: Favorite memory with the minor league Pittsburgh Hornets?
A: We went to national championship one year, it was kind of a makeshift group of 10 guys, and somehow made it out of an independent league to national championship, that was pretty cool.
Q: What was that 2009-11 experience in Saginaw, Mich., like for you?
A: It was fun. I had a good time. Met my wife there. Junior hockey is kind of a cold plunge, you get just dropped right into a situation where you’re living away from home in a town you know nothing about, and it turns out to just be hockey all day every day. It was a good time in my life. Think it improved my hockey game a lot. Made me grow up a lot from a teenager to an adult.
Q: What position did you play in baseball growing up?
A: Catcher.
Q: You enjoyed catching?
A: I did. I enjoyed cutting guys down at second.
Q: You have two dogs?
A: [A] Golden Retriever and Goldendoodle.
Q: What are their names?
A: Romeo and Porter.
Q: Any significance to those names?
A: My wife named Porter after the beer, and Romeo was Romeo just because he seemed like a lover.
Q: Do you still play piano?
A: Rustily.
Q: Do you have one at home?
A: In Pittsburgh.
Q: Three dinner guests?
A: Tiger Woods, Will Ferrell, my grandfather [Tomasso]. He died when I was young. I heard so many good things about him. Wish I would have experienced more.
Q: Favorite movie?
A: “Remember the Titans.”
Q: Favorite actor?
A: [Robert] DeNiro.
Q: Favorite actress?
A: Natalie Portman.
Q: Favorite singer/entertainer?
A: Ed Sheeran.
Q: Favorite meal?
A: Chicken parm.
Q: Where’s the best chicken parm in this area?
A: Besides my wife … Scalinatella on the Upper East Side’s pretty good.
Q: When you’re inside the Garden and this team is humming, describe what that feeling is like.
A: It’s just like easy, I guess, is the only thing that’s coming to my mind, it’s just like it flows, everything just feels right and it’s exciting. And when we’re playing the right way and we’re going and the Garden’s buzzing, it just feels like we can’t lose.
Q: What would your message about this team be to Rangers fans who are starving for another Stanley Cup?
A: The Stanley Cup’s the hardest trophy in the world to win, in my opinion. So there’s no guarantee (chuckle) that any team, whether it’s a team that goes 82-0 or a team that’s just barely sneaking in, there’s no guarantee that they’re going to win a Stanley Cup. But I think the team in this room has the makeup on and off the ice to be a Stanley Cup champion.
