We treated Trocheck like the 1C all year, and then against Florida, we hard-matched Zibanejad against Barkov.
It's time to hand Trocheck the keys. We could have a sperate discussion on whether or not we can win him in that spot, but that's neither here nor there. He's our best center today and should be in that spot. In his defense, he played Barkov basically even in the minutes they shared.
Granted, neither team actually scored a goal when Zibanejad and Barkov shared the ice, so some might argue it's all just piss in the wind. I don't agree with that. I think, in a playoff series, there's something to be said for the flow of the game, and building momentum/mounting a forecheck shift by shift.
Those shifts were spent almost entirely in our zone and really torpedoed offensive flow, even if Barkov didn't do much on the scoreboard 5v5.
(This entire post is 5v5 BTW)