How Jacob Trouba, one of the NHL’s hardest hitters, found his artistic side

HENDERSON, Nev. — We all know how hard Jacob Trouba hits. Just ask Timo Meier or Nazem Kadri, Sidney Crosby or Corey Perry, Andreas Athanasiou or Jujhar Khaira.

Even a 15-foot wall in a Brooklyn, N.Y., art studio is no match for one of the NHL’s most thunderous open-ice checkers.

In the past week, the Rangers captain unveiled his previously unknown talent on Instagram by sharing five paintings of a series of eight he has produced.

The kicker?

The creative Trouba doesn’t use a brush. Instead, his instrument is his entire body.

Trouba suits up in his hockey equipment, smothered in oil and acrylic paint, and, as he does on the ice, launches himself forward. The target is linen or canvas, fastened to a mattress that’s intended to protect not only Trouba but also the sheetrock behind it, which is in turn supported by aluminum framing.

Jacob Trouba in the midst of his unique creative process in the studio. (Courtesy of Trouba)

Trouba’s friend and mentor, a fellow artist named Michael Geschwer, donated one of the walls in his studio for Trouba to, frankly, go to town and create all sorts of impressive art.

“We turned his studio into basically the Kool-Aid guy going through the wall, which we now have a contractor coming out to give us a quote to fix the wall …  and the neighbor’s wall, which is cracked,” Trouba said, howling.

He’s not kidding.

“We thought it was just in our studio until I got a knock on the door from my very understanding draper-designer neighbor, who pointed out his wall was split from the floor to the ceiling,” Geschwer said.

Not long after Trouba was traded from Winnipeg in 2019, a close friend of Geschwer introduced Trouba and his wife, Kelly, to Geschwer’s wife, Cortnee Glasser. She’s a real-estate broker with Sotheby’s. Cortnee and Kelly became good friends, and Cortnee helped the Troubas find their home in Tribeca when they were eventually ready to buy.

Trouba, 29, and Geschwer, 50, became pals along the way, too.

Geschwer is a former lawyer turned New York Stock Exchange floor trader. He left Wall Street in 2011 to become an artist. His work has focused primarily on large-scale oil painting. The themes have ranged from Greek and Roman mythology to a personal mythology of New York. He’s currently working on a series of “symbolic paintings on unintended consequences.”

Trouba showed interest, and Geschwer gave him some art books and names of artists to research.

“I started painting like two summers ago, I guess, now,” Trouba said. “Originally it started as just kind of a fun thing. The goal when I first started painting was to paint something that my wife would allow me to hang in the house. It’s still not hanging in the house. She claimed it’s going in the nursery, but it’s still not hanging.”

When Trouba started to show more and more interest, Geschwer invited the defenseman to use a section of one of…