Jacob Trouba did not mince words when talking about the Rangers' mishandling of this whole trade fiasco.
Now with Jacob Trouba officially traded by the New York Rangers to the Anaheim Ducks, he is opening up about his frustration regarding how this whole situation was handled.
Since the offseason, Rangers general manager Chris Drury was attempting to trade Trouba and everything got ugly and messy.
The Rangers’ desire to move on from their captain went public on top of Trouba’s personal family interest to remain in New York.
“I'll be honest, I was put in a decision this summer to make a decision between my career and my family and I chose my family,” Trouba said. “I would choose my family 100 times over again. I don't feel bad about that. I was happy about it. I don't like that it was made public necessarily or how everything unfolded so publicly, but I guess that's part of New York and what happens.
“It made it difficult to play kind of what that hanging over everything. The result is the result. I'm happy with moving forward, but I'm not overly thrilled with how it went down. In my opinion, things could've been handled better. I'm not blaming anybody or anything, just kind of how it happened I thought was kind of unfortunate.”
Trouba knew the 2024-25 campaign would mark his final season with the Rangers, but it was how quickly things unraveled that was surprising.
The Rangers began to struggle on the ice. As a result, Drury sent a memo to all opposing general managers that he is looking to make moves in order to shake up the roster with Trouba’s name specifically pinpointed.
The 30-year-old confirmed that Drury threatened to place him on waivers if he did not waive his partial no-trade clause. At that point, Trouba had no choice but to accept a trade.
“It was a threat,” Trouba said.
"Yesterday morning it was accept this trade or we're scratching you. I said okay. Then it was accept this trade or you're going on waivers. I said okay. It's a rite of passage to get fired from MSG."
According to TSN’s Pierre LeBrun, Trouba's agent Kurt Overhardt says he worked Drury especially hard over the past 24 hours to find a resolution and he had permission from the Rangers to speak directly to several teams.
Ultimately, Trouba decided that Anaheim was the best fit for him.