GREENBURGH, N.Y. (AP) — New York Rangers defenseman Jacob Trouba said Thursday “there’s no animosity” toward the organization following an offseason in which his name was prominently mentioned in trade rumors.
“It’s part of the business of hockey,” Trouba said following the first day of training camp for the reigning Presidents’ Trophy-winning Rangers.
According to reports, Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury had negotiated a trade that would send New York’s captain to Detroit in late June. The trade fell apart, however, when Trouba submitted his 15-team no-trade list to the Rangers on June 30 and included the Red Wings on it.
“Obviously, had the no-move that turned into the partial no-trade,” said Trouba, whom New York acquired in a trade with Winnipeg in June 2019 and signed to a seven-year, $56 million contract one month later. “That’s life, contracts, hockey business, whatever you want to call it.
“I knew that was coming that summer. It’s not by surprise. It was obviously something that was negotiated at the time.”
The 30-year-old’s insistence that his relationship with Drury is fine echoes what the executive said in a pre-training camp conference call with reporters.
“Jacob and I talk all the time as GM and captain should,” Drury said. “We’ve had a number of different conversations over the course of the summer on a lot of different things. He is very clear as to where he stands with me and what I think of him as a player and as a leader.”
Still, Trouba realizes that the 2024-25 season is likely the last for the current iteration of the Original Six franchise. The Rangers have qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs in each of the last three seasons, and have reached the Eastern Conference Finals in 2022 and 2024. Following last spring’s six-game series loss to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, Drury wondered aloud in a conference call with reporters if the Rangers’ core players could lead the franchise to a Stanley Cup.
“(It’s) an opportunity that we have in front of us that in all likelihood will probably be the last crack for this core,” Trouba said. “I don’t think that’s a secret by any means. (A) group that’s kind of grown together, spent some years together here, and there’s something we want to accomplish.”
AP NHL: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL
FILE - New York Rangers defenseman Jacob Trouba lines up for a face-off during the second period of an NHL hockey game against the Detroit Red Wings, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2019, at Madison Square Garden in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
MAGDEBURG, Germany (AP) — Germany on Saturday was still in shock and struggling to understand the suspect behind the attack in the city of Magdeburg.
Identified by local media as 50-year-old Taleb A., a psychiatry and psychotherapy specialist, authorities said he has been living in Germany for two decades. He was arrested on site after plowing a black BMW into a Christmas market crowded with holiday shoppers Friday evening, killing at least five people and wounding about 200 others.
Prominent German terrorism expert Peter Neumann posted on X that he had yet to come across a suspect in an act of mass violence with that profile.
Taleb’s X account is filled with tweets and retweets focusing on anti-Islam themes and criticism of the religion while sharing congratulatory notes to Muslims who left the faith. He also described himself as a former Muslim.
He was critical of German authorities, saying they had failed to do enough to combat the “Islamism of Europe.”
He has also voiced support for the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Some described Taleb as an activist who helped Saudi women flee their homeland. Recently, he seemed focused on his theory that German authorities have been targeting Saudi asylum seekers.
Neumann, the terrorism expert, wrote: “After 25 years in this ‘business’ you think nothing could surprise you anymore. But a 50-year-old Saudi ex-Muslim who lives in East Germany, loves the AfD and wants to punish Germany for its tolerance towards Islamists — that really wasn’t on my radar."
On Saturday, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters: “At this point, we can only say for sure that the perpetrator was evidently Islamophobic – we can confirm that. Everything else is a matter for further investigation and we have to wait.”
A German-based organization called Athiest Refugee Relief said the alleged attacker was not a part of the group and claimed that he made “numerous accusations and claims” against it and former board members, which it said were false.
“We distance ourselves from him in the strongest terms," the group said in a statement on its website, adding that members of Atheist Refugee Relief filed a criminal complaint against him in 2019 following “the most foul slander and verbal attacks."
An image taken from a video shows police officers arresting a suspect after car drove into a crowd at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (TNN/DPA via AP)
A person stands by flowers and candles placed outside St. John's Church near a Christmas Market, where a car drove into a crowd on Friday evening, in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
