There could be repercussions on the rest of the NHL for how the New York Rangers handled trading Jacob Trouba.
Since Trouba has a partial no-trade clause, Rangers general manager Chris Drury threatened to place the veteran defenseman on waivers if he did not accept a trade to certain teams.
Players across the NHL reportedly are not too happy with what just transpired and feel a rule change is necessary to avoid this in the future.
“Some of the agents said they had more contact with their players than they’ve had on most other topics than they’ve had on this one,” Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said. “One of the things people have been talking about is that players feel very strongly that maybe there should be a streamlining of the protection process. The Rangers by the letter of the law did nothing wrong. Jacob Trouba had a no-trade protection to some teams, but did not have no-move protection, so he should go on waivers.
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“What bothered the players I think to a large degree was if you can’t be traded to certain teams, why should you be allowed to go to those teams on waivers. I think that they are going to ask the players association to do is have a conversation in the upcoming CBA negotiations that maybe there should be just one form of protection.”
Trouba confirmed that the Ragers threatened him with waivers and made clear his frustration toward how everything was handled on the part of Drury.
Meanwhile, Drury defended the way things went down with Trouba and his decision to waive Barclay Goodrow over the summer, which also caused some pushback from players within the Rangers organization.
“It’s my job, and 31 other GMs’ jobs, to try and do everything we can to help our team,” Drury said via Vince Z. Mercogliano of USA Today. There’s things at our disposal in the CBA. I’m not trying to mess with players. I have a ton of respect for Barclay and certainly, as I’ve said already, for Jacob. I’m just trying to do the best I can to move the team forward and make changes that I think are necessary.”
At the next CBA negotiations, there could very well be a conversation about this issue with major changes being made if the players get their way.