The poor reception of the way Berkeley Good Row in Rangers Locker Room was abandoned and how Jacob Truba made his last offseason shopping was well documented.
It was not only widely reported immediately after, but was evident in the sensations within the MSG training centre on the first day of training camp. Goodrow may have been on the other side of the country that began his season from his season in San Jose after Bruce Hart avoided his 15-team non-trade list in a pre-treated deal with the Sharks, but Truba had to serve as the captain of a team that tried to go back into the room and drive him away.
Players always like to say it’s part of the business, but there was a clear disconnect between the management and the team as to how the business was handled.
“So it even bothers him to admit that it’s difficult for him to lead this team in his situation,” Adam Fox said Monday. “Maybe a lot of it is subconscious. You really don’t think about it, but when your captain has that idea, I think it’s the guy who changed the game for us in terms of the energy he brings and the energy he can change it with the fight.
“But again, it’s also New York and there’s always noise. It really tends to take over, especially when we’re not playing what we’re going to be. I don’t think that helped, but as a player, I’m not overlooking the playoffs.”
However, the way the remaining Rangers spoke about Goodrow and Truba on their farewell days suggests what happened with these two players, and that the season was doomed from the start.
It seemed like so much air was picked up in the room and moving from there became even more difficult. Trouba remained with Rangers until traded to Anaheim on December 6th, so his outward expression of frustration with the management also remained.
Chris Cryder said at some point it would be a distraction. He cited the team’s dynamics and how it changed the environment. It was challenging, he pointed out.
“I can’t talk to everyone else. I think everyone treats it differently,” Mika Zibanejad said of how the headlines in her last offseason affected the room. “Everyone has a different relationship to it. But when it happens, you’re frustrated. I think it’s when you don’t know everything. You don’t know what’s going on.
“It’s our assistant captain, our captain. It’s a big part of the locker room so of course it shakes things a little.”
As a result, within the organization was, of course, a conversation topic on the farewell day. Four players, Kaapo Kako, Jimmy Vesey, Zac Jones and Calvin de Haan, spoke out to express their issues about their roles at various points in the season.
Corkko began his offseason in Seattle, with Visy acting as a healthy scratch throughout the first two playoff games in the avalanche, but Jones said he was standing on what he said about being “rotten” in his depth role with the Ranger.
DeHan, 33, frustrated at the boiling of 20 straight healthy wounds in options practice in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, said he was under the impression he would perform when he came to New York as part of a deal that sent Lindgren and Visy to Colorado.
Noting that he thought communication could be better, De Haan said he “never actually gave a direct answer as to why.”
During the end-of-season conference call with the media, President and General Manager Chris Drury assured former head coach Peter LaViolett was big in communication, telling each player whether they were playing and why they weren’t.
“I think it’s on top of us to ensure that the outside noise doesn’t reach us,” Vincent Trokek said. “I think we can make it better, whether it’s talking to someone individually or whether it’s sticking together as a team and as a family.
