Vincent Trocheck stays put with Rangers; Sam Carrick traded to the Buffalo Sabres

Deadline Day 2026 got started early for the Rangers, and ended late.

At 8 a.m., the team announced it had traded fourth-line center Sam Carrick to Buffalo for a third-round pick and a sixth-rounder in this summer’s NHL draft. About 90 minutes after the NHL’s 3 p.m. trade deadline had passed, the team announced it had traded young forward Brennan Othmann to Calgary for 19-year-old junior prospect Jacob Battaglia.

But the big move, the one everyone had been expecting for weeks, never materialized as the NHL’s 3 p.m. trade deadline came and went with the Rangers not  trading  center Vincent Trocheck.

“Vincent Trocheck is a great player,’’ general manager Chris Drury said in a Zoom call after the deadline had passed. “He’s been a great Ranger for us, and a leader on and off the ice. Broadly speaking to any player in the organization, as it pertains to the retool, and this trade deadline and moving forward, we’re going to make deals that we think make sense. The deals we made today and leading up to this deadline, to us, made sense. We certainly weren’t just going to make a trade on any player just to say we made a trade.’’

Trocheck, 32, had been perhaps the most talked-about player in trade speculation ever since Drury announced in a Jan. 16 message to the fans that the team would be undergoing a “retool.’’ Defenseman Carson Soucy and leading scorer Artemi Panarin were traded before the Olympic break, and it was considered a lock that Trocheck, a gold medal-winner with Team USA  at the Olympics, would follow them out the door.

As a righthanded-shooting center who plays a two-way game, kills penalties, plays on the power play and wins faceoffs at a 57.2% clip this season, Trocheck was always a much-desired commodity among Stanley Cup contenders. And it was thought the return for him in a potential trade would be too much for the Rangers to refuse. But apparently it wasn’t.

And so Trocheck, who, along with Carrick, was held out of the lineup Thursday for the Rangers’ 6-2 victory over Toronto, and who did not practice with the team Friday, remains on the roster. He is eligible to play in Saturday's game in New Jersey against the Devils.

On the call, Drury was asked if he was concerned by comments from defenseman Adam Fox, who declined to commit to sticking with the team through the retool. He dodged the question.

“Adam’s obviously a terrific person, a great player. Local guy (from Jericho),’’ Drury said. “We’re thrilled he’s a Ranger and continues to be.’’

Trocheck had spoken candidly to reporters after the Rangers’ morning skate Monday, before that night’s game against Columbus. He seemed ready to go if he got the call.

“If I get traded, I'm fine,’’ he said, adding he’d spoken to his two young children about the situation, to prepare them for the possibility he might be moving. “I'm not worried about myself. I'm more worried about my family. That's the only thing that I have to worry about.’’

Carrick joins a Buffalo team that has been one of the biggest surprises in the league and looks poised to make the playoffs for the first time since 2011, ending the longest playoff drought in the league. Carrick has four goals, six assists, 53 penalty minutes and a 53.9% faceoff win rate this season. The third-rounder the Rangers receive will be Buffalo’s own pick; the sixth-rounder will be one originally belonging to Chicago.

Othmann was the Rangers’ first-round pick in 2021, Drury’s first after taking over as team president and GM. But he never was able to establish himself as an NHL regular, and for him, the trade is a fresh start.

“He’s a terrific kid and worked extremely hard to try and make it work here. For a number of reasons, it just didn’t. Through no one’s fault,’’ Drury said of Othmann. “I think he had been looking for a new opportunity, and we wanted to give him that chance. And just like any other deal, we weren’t going to give him away.

“We think he’s a good young player, and [there are] certainly, no hard feelings on our end, and we wish him luck.’’

Battaglia, who turns 20 on March 17, was a second-round pick by the Flames in 2024 and plays for Flint of the OHL.

The Rangers also made a minor league deal, sending defenseman Derrick Pouliot, who had been playing for AHL Hartford, to Chicago for center Aidan Thompson, who had been playing for AHL Rockford.

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.