New York Rangers center Vincent Trocheck is out week to week with an upper-body injury sustained in Thursday’s 4-0 win against the Buffalo Sabres, the team announced Saturday morning. The injury takes away one of the Rangers’ most versatile players and a critical component in their top six.
The 32-year-old exited Thursday’s game at the 6:50 mark of the second period following a penalty-kill shift and did not return. He has one assist in two games this season and had been centering a line between wingers Artemi Panarin and Alexis Lafrenière. He was an NHL All-Star while tallying 25 goals and 77 points in 2023-24, but last season saw a dip to 59 points, his lowest total in three seasons with New York.
“He’s an extremely talented guy,” Rangers coach Mike Sullivan said. “He plays in a lot of key situations for us, one of our best center icemen in the faceoff circle, and obviously plays in every situation — the power play, the penalty kill, and part of our top six. So those guys aren’t easy to replace, but it’s going to provide opportunities for others to step up. We’ll see what we have.”
With Trocheck out, Mika Zibanejad moved back to center at Saturday’s morning skate in Pittsburgh. Zibanejad had started the year on J.T. Miller’s right wing — something both players said they wanted going into the year. Now he’s taking Trocheck’s spot with Panarin and Lafrenière.
With no Trocheck, #NYR lines are:
Panarin – Zibanejad – Laf
Cuylle – Miller – Sheary
Pärssinen – Laba – Raddysh
Edström – Carrick – Rempe— Vince Z. Mercogliano (@vzmercogliano) October 11, 2025
“We need to give some of our other offensive people a center iceman that can think the game at their level and give them an opportunity to set them up for success,” Sullivan said of moving Zibanejad to center. “I feel like when we have J.T. and Mika in our top two center positions, and now we surround them with some of the people that we have that we think are gifted offensively, those two guys can think the game along those terms. So I just think the balance part of it is an important element. We feel like, when Troch was out of the lineup, it was a necessary choice to put Mika back in the middle.”
Conor Sheary skated on Miller’s right wing at morning skate, and Juuso Pärssinen took his spot on the third line. Pärssinen is set to make his season debut at left wing after losing out to rookie Noah Laba in the training camp battle for third-line center.
“Excited,” the 24-year-old Finn said of the opportunity. “A lot of energy. First game of the season for myself, so that’s always fun. I’m trying to bring my game and help the guys get the win.”
The Rangers are not yet calling up one of their young forwards from AHL Hartford. They have only $842,000 in cap space, according to PuckPedia, which is less than any of the cap hits of Brett Berard, Gabe Perreault and Brennan Othmann. The team could put Trocheck on long-term injured reserve to create space, but that would mean he has to miss 10-plus games or 24 days. It would also prevent the team from accruing cap space if it exceeded the salary-cap ceiling, which it would do if any of the young forwards came up.
At least, for Saturday’s game against the Penguins — and potentially for more time after — New York is comfortable not making a roster move and carrying 13 healthy forwards. Jonny Brodzinski is set to be the healthy scratch Saturday.
Aside from using LTIR, the only other way for the Rangers to create enough cap space for a call-up is to place a player such as Pärssinen or Brodzinski on waivers. That comes with the risk of any other team being able to claim them and losing organizational depth at center, which is already being tested with Trocheck out.
In Trocheck’s absence, Lafrenière skated on the top power-play unit Saturday morning with Adam Fox, Panarin, Zibanejad and Miller.
