At the time, Trocheck probably had the 2nd best year of his career last year. He was a monster at faceoffs. Played all situations. Gets chippy and in your face. Forechecks well. The production was roughly the same as what they were getting out of Strome, but had all that extra stuff thrown on top. There were projections for the first year production to look more like what he did this year, based on the fact he was already a really good player without Panarin, unlike Strome. He fell short of those projections last year, but he was still a better overall player than Strome. The fact the gap between the two widened so significantly this year doesn’t mean it didn’t exist to begin with.