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Vincent Trocheck counted off the dishes on his family’s dinner table back in Pittsburgh.

There was chicken parmesan, rigatoni and arancini. There were meatballs, plates of linguine with shrimp and scallops and chicken cutlets. There was braciola, a rolled meat roulade smothered in tomato sauce.

The food wasn’t just for his own family, but for his hockey family. Trocheck has made it an annual tradition to host New York Rangers teammates for an Italian feast during the season: a chance to mangiare (eat up), as the Italians say, and a chance to bond.

“Have a good home-cooked meal on the road,” he said. “I just think it’s good to have everybody together.”

Trocheck brought everybody together again recently, but in a corner of the rink at Madison Square Garden, deliriously celebrating a goal.

After his double-overtime goal in Game 2 against the Carolina Hurricanes, Trocheck was surrounded by every Ranger on the ice and those who had skated off the bench. The goal horn was blaring. The New York fans were euphoric. Trocheck grinned widely in a sea of blue, an instant classic photo that became fodder for the Art But Make It Sports social media account:

“When they go into overtime or double overtime, anyone can win those games,” Trocheck said. “Anything can happen.”

What happened in Game 2 has happened with frequency this season: The Rangers score on the power play. Just like they did to tie the game on a Chris Kreider goal in the third period — Trocheck assisted on that one.

“I think we do expect to score. We feel like as a unit, the team relies on us to score on the power play,” Trocheck said of their power play, clicking at 34.5%. “Special teams have been so big so far in the playoffs. We’re relied on a lot, and there’s a lot of pressure in that. We have this confidence, this rhythm. We just want to keep doing the same things, keep this going.”

The Rangers won the game 4-3 in part because the Hurricanes lacked confidence in their own power play, going 0-for-5 in 6:53 with the man advantage. Trocheck was on the ice for 4:16 of that penalty killing, more than any other New York forward.

If this Rangers season was a family meal, Trocheck would be the one organizing the place settings, stirring the meatballs, topping off everyone’s beverages and parking the cars.

In a season where the Rangers are closing in on their first Stanley Cup championship in 30 years, Vincent Trocheck is doing it all.

“He touches every part of the game,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. “The entire year, he’s a guy that’s been counted on in so many situations, on both sides of the puck.”


THIS REGULAR SEASON Trocheck averaged 21:27 in ice time per game, with 3:29 on the power play and 1:35 on the penalty kill. In seven playoff games, he’s averaging 23:59, with 4:19 spent on the power play and 3:36 on the kill.

He was second on the Rangers behind his linemate Artemi Panarin in the regular season with 77 points (25 goals, 52 assists) in 82 games. Through seven playoff games, he’s tied with Mika Zibanejad with 12 points in seven games (five goals, seven assists). That includes four even-strength points, seven power-play points and one short-handed point.

While many thought the Rangers’ even-strength play would be a liability against the Hurricanes, Trocheck said that wasn’t a concern.

“I don’t think anybody’s thinking that we have to score at 5-on-5. If we win 4-0 and it’s two power-play goals and two short-handed goals, nobody cares. We just have to score,” he said. “We’re just trying to win games no matter how we can.”

It’s clear that Laviolette believes one of the most efficient ways to win playoff games is copious amounts of Vincent Trocheck. No Rangers skater has played more through their first seven games.

“It’s the playoffs now. You have games that are pushed into multiple overtimes, and yet his role doesn’t change. He’s part of every part of the game,” Laviolette said. “I’m double-shifting him just to get him back in the faceoff circle. Power play, penalty kill, 5-on-5 play. He just keeps answering the bell. It’s noticeable. He’s engaged. You can see it in his demeanor and the way that he’s playing the game.”

This might be Trocheck’s finest season in the NHL. Part of that is owed to his incredible line with Artemi Panarin and Alexis Lafreniere. No trio in the league played more together than they did (864 minutes). According to Evolving Hockey, Trocheck’s line averaged 3.76 goals per 60 minutes while giving up 2.27 goals per 60. They had an expected goals percentage of 54.9% at 5-on-5.

“Having chemistry with guys is important,” Trocheck said. “Having that continuity is important, too.”

In Game 3 against the Hurricanes on Thursday night, Panarin scored the overtime winner on a deflected pass from Trocheck, who had received the puck from Lafrenière.

“It was a great play for all three of them. They were able to get it in there, pick a puck up out of the corner,” Laviolette said. “Really nice play by Troch, and a great finish by Artemi.”

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Rangers go up 3-0 on Artemi Panarin’s OT winner

Artemi Panarin deflects it in between his legs to score the winning goal for the Rangers in overtime.

It was the second goal generated in the game by the line, as Lafreniere scored his third of the playoffs earlier in the third period to give the Rangers a 2-1 lead.


THE DOMINANCE OF that line helped Panarin (49 goals, 120 points) and Lafreniere (28 goals, 57 points) to new career bests in the regular season. Trocheck had his second-best goal-scoring season and set a new career best with 77 points, the highest-scoring season of his 11-year career.

He went to the NHL All-Star Game for the second time, bringing his hockey-obsessed five-year-old son Leo with him to Toronto. “I was most excited to have him experience that,” Trocheck said.

Trocheck’s career began in Florida in 2013-14, but it’s his second NHL destination that’s been in the conversation lately. He played three seasons with the Hurricanes before signing a seven-year, $39.375 million free agent contract with the Rangers in 2022.

Former Hurricanes center Derek Stepan played with Trocheck in the 2021-22 season, and he’s not surprised that Trocheck has found another level with the Rangers.

“He just does so many things right,” Stepan said. “He’s good in the [faceoff] dot. He can create space for his linemates offensively. He can score goals. Defensively, he’s responsible in pretty much all situations. So he is just a complete player and he is one of those guys that you need to have on your team.”

There are over a dozen players on the current Hurricanes team that played with Trocheck, including in an intense seven-game second-round loss to the Rangers in 2022. But Trocheck said that the emotions of facing his former teammates in a playoff series didn’t impact him.

“It’s a playoff series that we need to get past to achieve our goal of winning the Stanley Cup,” Trocheck said. “I mean, I’ve played a bunch against these guys already. Playing against former teammates is nothing new. In this league, you move from team to team. It’s just another series.”

Laviolette, who won a Stanley Cup with Carolina in 2006, consulted Trocheck before the series for some intel on the Hurricanes. But Rod Brind’Amour, Trocheck’s former coach, said he didn’t design any game plans to handle Trocheck despite knowing his tendencies from his Hurricanes days.

“He was a great player for us. We wanted to keep him. This wasn’t a trade or anything like that. It’s just business,” Brind’Amour said. “Clearly he’s been a great player for them. It’s not shocking. We knew that. They got a good one.”

A good one on and off the ice. Stepan wasn’t surprised to hear how Trocheck had bonded with the Rangers behind the scenes, from the locker room to the dinner table in Pittsburgh. He knew that guy in Carolina. He knew what he could become in New York.

“He’s an awesome dude. Likes to hang out, likes to have fun. He understands that the game can’t be taken too seriously,” Stepan said. “He’s able to joke around with anybody and everybody. He works hard at being a good teammate with all of his guys.”

Stepan paused for a moment. “I know I’m blowing a lot of smoke up his rear end, but he is truly all those things. I’m really happy for him.”

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Giants sell 10% stake to private equity firm

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Giants sell 10% stake to private equity firm

The San Francisco Giants have sold a reported 10% stake in the team to private equity firm Sixth Street.

The team confirmed the deal Tuesday but not the amount of the investment, which was first reported Monday by the New York Times.

Sportico places the value of the franchise and its team-related holdings at $4.2 billion.

Sixth Street’s investment, reportedly approved by Major League Baseball on Monday, will go toward upgrades to Oracle Park and the Giants’ training facilities in Scottsdale, Arizona, as well as Mission Rock, the team’s real estate development project located across McCovey Cove from the ballpark.

Giants president and CEO Larry Baer called it the “first significant investment in three decades” and said the money would not be spent on players.

“This is not about a stockpile for the next Aaron Judge,” Baer told the New York Times. “This is about improvements to the ballpark, making big bets on San Francisco and the community around us, and having the firepower to take us into the next generation.”

Sixth Street is the primary owner of National Women’s Soccer League franchise Bay FC. It also has investments in the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs and Spanish soccer powers Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.

“We believe in the future of San Francisco, and our sports franchises like the Giants are critical ambassadors for our city of innovation, showcasing to the world what’s only made possible here,” Sixth Street co-founder and CEO Alan Waxman said in the news release. “We believe in Larry and the leadership team’s vision for this exciting new era, and we’re proud to be partnering with them as they execute the next chapter of San Francisco Giants success.”

Founded in 2009 and based in San Francisco, Sixth Street has assets totaling $75 billion, according to Front Office Sports.

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Ohtani ‘nervous’ in Tokyo but gets 2 hits, runs

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Ohtani 'nervous' in Tokyo but gets 2 hits, runs

TOKYO — Shohei Ohtani seems impervious to a variety of conditions that afflict most humans — nerves, anxiety, distraction — but it took playing a regular-season big-league game in his home country to change all of that.

After the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ Opening Day 4-1 win over the Chicago Cubs in the Tokyo Dome, Ohtani made a surprising admission. “It’s been a while since I felt this nervous playing a game,” he said. “It took me four or five innings.”

Ohtani had two hits and scored twice, and one of his outs was a hard liner that left his bat at more than 96 mph, so the nerves weren’t obvious from the outside. But clearly the moment, and its weeklong buildup, altered his usually stoic demeanor.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Shohei nervous,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But one thing I did notice was how emotional he got during the Japanese national anthem. I thought that was telling.”

As the Dodgers began the defense of last year’s World Series win, it became a night to showcase the five Japanese players on the two teams. For the first time in league history, two Japanese pitchers — the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto and the Cubs’ Shota Imanaga — faced each other on Opening Day. Both pitched well, with Imanaga throwing four hitless innings before being removed after 69 pitches.

“Seventy was kind of the number we had for Shota,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “It was the right time to take him out.”

The Dodgers agreed, scoring three in the fifth inning off reliever Ben Brown. Imanaga kept the Dodgers off balance, but his career-high four walks created two stressful innings that ran up his pitch count.

Yamamoto rode the adrenaline of pitching in his home country, routinely hitting 98 with his fastball and vexing the Cubs with a diving splitter over the course of five three-hit innings. He threw with a kind of abandon, finding a freedom that often eluded him last year in his first year in America.

“I think last year to this year, the confidence and conviction he has throwing the fastball in the strike zone is night and day,” Roberts said. “If he can continue to do that, I see no reason he won’t be in the Cy Young conversation this season.”

Cubs right fielder Seiya Suzuki went hitless in four at bats — the Cubs had only three hits, none in the final four innings against four relievers out of the Dodgers’ loaded bullpen — and rookie Roki Sasaki will make his first start of his Dodger career in the second and final game of the series Wednesday.

“I don’t think there was a Japanese baseball player in this country who wasn’t watching tonight,” Roberts said.

The Dodgers were without Mookie Betts, who left Japan on Monday after it was decided his illness would not allow him to play in this series. And less than an hour before game time, first baseman Freddie Freeman was scratched with what the team termed “left rib discomfort,” a recurrence of an injury he first sustained during last year’s playoffs.

The night started with a pregame celebration that felt like an Olympic opening ceremony in a lesser key. There were Pikachus on the field and a vaguely threatening video depicting the Dodgers and Cubs as Monster vs. Monster. World home-run king Saduharu Oh was on the field before the game, and Roberts called meeting Oh “a dream come true.”

For the most part, the crowd was subdued, as if it couldn’t decide who or what to root for, other than Ohtani. It was admittedly confounding: throughout the first five innings, if fans rooted for the Dodgers they were rooting against Imanaga, but rooting for the Cubs meant rooting against Yamamoto. Ohtani, whose every movement is treated with a rare sense of wonder, presented no such conflict.

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Cardinals shortstop Winn out with wrist soreness

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Cardinals shortstop Winn out with wrist soreness

JUPITER, Fla. — St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn was scratched from the lineup for their exhibition game on Tuesday because of soreness in his right wrist.

Winn was replaced by Jose Barrero in the Grapefruit League matchup with the Miami Marlins, with the regular-season opener nine days away. Winn, who was a 2020 second-round draft pick by the Cardinals, emerged as a productive everyday player during his rookie year in 2024. He batted .267 with 15 home runs, 11 stolen bases and 57 RBIs in 150 games and was named as one of three finalists for the National League Gold Glove Award that went to Ezequiel Tovar of the Colorado Rockies.

Winn had minor surgery after the season to remove a cyst from his hand. In 14 spring training games, he’s batting .098 (4 for 41) with 12 strikeouts.

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