Vincent Trocheck
Trocheck is a second-line center on a deep Utah forward group, with second power-play and penalty-kill work and no first-unit power-play role in the lineups I found.
Role
Lineup projections from Inside the Rink and Broad Street Hockey, both dated 1 November for the Utah at Philadelphia game, have him centering line 2 between Logan Cooley and Lawson Crouse. Keller-Schmaltz-Guenther is line 1. The same Inside the Rink preview has him on the second power-play unit with Anders Lee, Kailer Yamamoto, Barrett Hayton and MacKenzie Weegar. Utah's first unit there is Schmaltz, Cooley, Keller, Guenther and Sergachev. ESPN's line page, indexed about a week ago, also lists him on PP2 and on the first penalty-kill pair with Kevin Stenlund. A Frozen Pool log of the 29 October game against Pittsburgh shows him with Crouse and Cooley, plus some short-handed time with Jack McBain. I have not found a current ice-time figure. A Puckfeed snippet from early October had him at 14:14 of 5-on-5 over four games, which is too old to rely on. The competition for his slot is Hayton, who centers line 3. Schmaltz has also had Trocheck on his wing, notably in early October. I could not fetch Daily Faceoff's own line page, so I am not reporting what it says today.
He is a proven two-way center who now sits on a team with elite linemates. Cooley is on his wing, and he gets penalty-kill minutes and PP2 time. Lastwordonsports argued in September that the best fit is Trocheck as the clear 2C behind Cooley. It said he has a career faceoff percentage of 54.3, against 42.5 for Schmaltz. His usage has settled into that role since the early-season shuffling.
He has never been given first-unit power-play time in the sources I found, so his scoring ceiling is capped by PP2 minutes. The top-six pieces around him have moved a lot. His wingers rotated early, and the 29 October Frozen Pool game log lists the line as Trocheck-Crouse-Cooley. The same page has Lee-Yamamoto-Hayton listed ahead of the second line by time on ice for that game, which shows how fluid the groupings are. He is 33, and last season's line from our data was 15 games, 9 points and 1 power-play point. Lastwordonsports noted in September that Daily Faceoff then projected him on the third line, which would have cut the 20-plus minutes a game he usually played.
Where analysts split
The open question is where he sits in the lineup: the second-line center job against a possible drop to the third line or a move to wing. Lastwordonsports (15 September) cited Daily Faceoff's preseason projection of a third line with Hayton and Carcone. Early-October pages had him at right wing with Schmaltz and Keller, and the latest projections have him at 2C. I did not find an analyst arguing about his power-play role, which has been PP2 throughout.
Research confidence: reported. Outlooks are grounded in web search over current reporting and refreshed through the season.
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