George Richards, FHN Publisher
In a normal NHL season, the first time the Florida Panthers visited Carolina would bring a nice reunion between Vincent Trocheck and his former teammates.
There would be dinner, some drinks.
Lot of stories and laughs.
Of course, these are not normal times.
Co-mingling among friends on other teams, no matter how close the relationships, is now strictly against the rules.
The reunion between Trocheck and his pals from South Florida, at least on Tuesday, was relegated to a few hellos at the PNC Arena in Raleigh between practice sessions.
On Wednesday, however, Trocheck will certainly get some more facetime with his buddies when the Panthers play the Hurricanes at 5 p.m.
Next Wednesday will mark the one-year anniversary of the trade from Florida to Carolina.
“There are pretty strict protocols so I can’t see these guys at all, through the glass when they came out to watch some practice but that’s about it,” Trocheck said Tuesday afternoon.
“I have definitely been looking forward to playing them. It’s going to be a little weird, but once you get on the ice it’s just hockey.’’
Make no mistake, the relationships between Trocheck and many of the Panthers he left behind are close.
When the Panthers traded Trocheck, who had been with the organization for nine years, last February there were actual tears shed.
“My kids call him ‘Uncle Vinnie.’ I don’t know if my wife has told them yet. They are going to be pretty sad to hear this,” Keith Yandle said at the time of the trade.
“He is very invested in my kids, always there for them. But things like this happen. Every year, every team, you gain guys and you lose guys. But it never doesn’t suck.’’
News came down that Florida had sent Trocheck to Carolina while the team was preparing to leave their hotel in Las Vegas and fly to Arizona for a game the next day against the Coyotes.
The trade happened around 7 a.m. local time, so players woke up to text messages from friends and families either informing them of the news or asking for their reaction to it.
By 8, players started to work their way to the lobby of the Bellagio and, one by one, said their temporary goodbyes to a close friend and a fiercely competitive teammate.
Around 9:30, the team bus left for the airport.
Trocheck made his own way to McCarron International and caught a flight headed to Minneapolis.
There, he would take a connecting flight to North Carolina and embark on a new page of his hockey career.
“No doubt that was tough. We were all such good friends,” Aaron Ekblad said Tuesday.
“That core group that we thought was going to be able to get it done, obviously we lost pieces of that along the way and he was one of those pieces. It was sad. But, it’s part of the business, part of the game. I am happy he has moved on and doing well.”
Come Wednesday, Ekblad may have to put a hit on his friend.
He says he is not worried about that.
“I can imagine that he’s going to be hitting all of us,” Ekblad said with a laugh. “That’s kind of the role he has always played, right?
“He is strong, he is physical, a competitor. We know he’ll be buzzing around making hits and wanting to make a splash against us being the former team as anyone normally would.”
The Panthers, at the time of the trade, felt they had to make the move not only to shake up a disappointing team mired in a losing streak but to get what they felt was a nice haul from a player they once considered a core piece of the organization.
The front office was feeling frustration with how the Panthers came out of the All-Star break and felt something had to be done.
There was probably a lot of pressure on Dale Tallon to do something.
He knew he was in the last year of his contract as GM and Florida missing the playoffs wasn’t going to help his case, not after the money the team spent the previous offseason in trying to solidify the Panthers as a legit contender.
“Since the All-Star break, our team has really struggled and we wanted to find a way to shake things up and see what would work,” Tallon said the day of the trade.
“We just decided this was the right path … it was conscious from all of us that this was a fair deal and something we should do not only for the present but for the future.”
The Panthers were two points out of the playoffs at the time of the trade despite winning just four of their past 12 games.
Time was running out.
“We’re still right there,” Tallon said. “We felt if we made the right moves, make our team stronger, added experience and depth, this gives us an opportunity to see what we’re made of. We want to get in. That’s the message.”
It appears it took some time for Trocheck to acclimate himself to a new organization after spending his entire career with the Panthers.
In the seven games he played with Carolina before Covid-19 shut things down last year, Trocheck had a goal and an assist. In eight postseason games, two assists.
Before the trade, Trocheck had 10 goals and 36 points in 55 games with the Panthers.
This year, Trocheck has looked more like his old self — the one who scored a career-high 31 goals and 75 points in 2017-18 — than the one who fought through some injuries and struggled to get on the scoresheet as he once did with the Panthers.
In 12 games, Trocheck has six goals and 13 points. He comes into Wednesday’s game riding a four-game point streak with a goal and six points during that span.
Trocheck is a big part of a really good Carolina team, one with legitimate thoughts of being a Stanley Cup contender.
He left the Panthers ranked in the franchise top 10 for goals, points and assists.
“Being 100 percent healthy for the first time in a couple of years is definitely playing a role,” Trocheck said Tuesday while wearing a Hurricanes t-shirt and a Hartford Whalers baseball cap.
“I had back-to-back seasons with some serious injuries so being 100 percent healthy is paying a role but so is being comfortable with this organization.
“Having the time over the past season and offseason to get acclimated to everyone and this system makes you more comfortable and that helps.”
Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said the Hurricanes gave up a lot to get Trocheck because they figured he was a piece they really needed.
“There’s no doubt, that’s why we went and acquired him,” Brind’Amour said. “Just coaching against him, watching him all these years, the competitiveness is what really stood out.
“Obviously you can see he’s a smart player who can make plays. But I always thought the intangible was he was a competitive player and you can’t have enough of those.
“I thought it was a huge move to get him.”
The Panthers just don’t have a lot left from the trade.
Erik Haula, the biggest name acquisition, was let to walk in free agency.
Lucas Wallmark, a player some in the front office said was key to the deal, was not made a qualifying offer by the new administration and went to Chicago as a free agent.
Florida does have two of the four players remaining with center Eetu Luostarinen, perhaps the most overlooked player in the deal, establishing himself as a bona fide NHL player.
He has been centering the third line all season and has shown some elite playmaking ability with two goals and six points in 13 games.
Luostarinen had one assist in eight games with Carolina last season in a lesser role than he has with the Panthers.
The Panthers also have South Florida native Chase Priskie within the organization, a defenseman the team hopes may help them sometime soon.
Right now, he continues his development as a second-year pro player with the Panthers/Lightning AHL team in Syracuse.