The Rangers are finally hot, winning nine of their last 10 and 13 of 17 to get into the heart of the playoff battle. As Pat Leonard wrote today, defense - a hall mark of this team - has been a major reason for the hot streak. "After allowing four or more goals in nine of their first 24 games, the Rangers have not surrendered more than three in their last 11 matches, dating back to Dec. 1. Through 26 games, the Rangers had coughed up a staggering 18 of 25 leads, but in the last nine games, they have not surrendered any of their seven advantages."
There are areas that need to be worked on, which include finding a consistent sixth defenseman, possibly adding more physicality on the blue line and getting Dan Boyle back to playing like we hoped Boyle would play. In addition, setting the bottom-six and making the penalty kill sharp like it was earlier in the year are two other news. But what might be first and foremost is making a call on several of the RFA and UFA. This will be an area i tackle periodically over the next two months, until the March 2 deadline, with those not signed to be a focus until the off-season. First up on the list is Derek Stepan.
Stepan doesn't profile as a true number one center. He is not fleet of skate or have a blistering slap or wrist shot. In fact, too often, he looks to pass before shoot, though that may be a check on the positive side of the ledger for him. Stepan struggles with face-offs, which is an area that every Rangers fan and the organization would love him to improve on. His advanced stats rating don't jump off the page and may pale in comparison to others. All that said, he is still producing at a point-per-game, has a major role on the penalty kill and on the power play and if not a "true" #1 center, he is 1a with Derick Brassard.
To provide some additional context and hearken you back to past columns on Stepan, the first column is from August 2014 when I was going the the 20+ offseason questions for this upcoming season. The second is from June 2013, when I was projecting the RFA salaries for four different Rangers, including Stepan. What can be gleaned from each?
The Rangers got a relative bargain in paying Stepan $3.075 mil, however, Sather likely cost the team a ton of cash with just a two year deal. Unfortunately, this is a pattern repeated too often. I wrote in June 2013, "in my opinion, if you can lock up a 23-year old, first or at worse high-second line center for five years at around $22.5-24 million, you do and don't look back." This past August, I said: "given that Brassard was an RFA and wanted $5.5 mil before getting a long-term deal at $5 mil with salaries of $7 mil this year and $6 in 2016-17, if Stepan has 12 more points than Brassard as he did this year, would $6 mil really be a ridiculous ask?"
Now Stepan may not end up with a dozen more points than Brassard, but if Brassard was having this kind of year as an RFA now, he might exceed the $5 mil per he is receiving. As noted above, Stepan may not fit the profile for a true top center, but he is playing like one. if you look at what those who may fit that profile and/or those averaging close to what Stepan is producing, an ask of six years at $6-7 mil per year is not only not crazy but could be considered by many to be low. The ability to sign Stepan "cheaply" is likely lost, but Sather might be able to extract a modicum of savings by acting now and not waiting. Stepan is likely to get more than Brassard, given the expected to rise on the cap in the future, though it remains to be seen just how high it will rise. Offer Stepan six years and $37 million to start with and escalate slightly up to $39 to $40 million if necessary.
August 2014:
The two questions posed were: 10. Did his playoff performance provide enough assurance that Derek Stepan is or can be a true #1 center? Does his lack of size and speed, especially when compared to Kopitar and Carter, solidify the view that the Rangers need to acquire a big, scoring center to fill that role?
11. Based on 10, does NY have to try and sign Paul Stastny? Trade for Jason Spezza or Eric Staal or Joe Thornton? Or acquire another "top" center to maximize the lineup talent?
This offseason, beyond the status of the BIG THREE RFAs, much of the discussion on the Rangers centered, no pun intended, around their lack of depth down the middle and need for a top center. During the regular season and playoffs, there were several comments running through the top centers in the league and how Stepan did - or more precisely in the view of money - did not compare to those individuals. I am not going to convince you one way or the other, since if you mind was made up that he is or he isn't, what I wrote won't sway you to the other side.
I will agree with you that Stepan is likely not a 90-100 point center. He probably won't be an 80-point producer. His flaws include a lack of elite skating ability, though he is not as bad as everyone makes him out to be, though he would benefit from power skating lessons. In addition, he is weak on faceoffs, winning less than 50% of his draws. While I would recommend he works with someone to get better, he had the opportunity to learn from Brian Boyle and Dominic Moore and either didn't take advantage of that chance or did and still wasn't able to improve.
All that said, the still are positives that while he may not be a prototypical "number one" center, he can fill that role and does so fairly well for New York. If you want to say he is a 1b or a top-second line center, it's hard to argue with it, but that doesn't diminish his value. If you look at the truly elite centers, they are hard to find, and even though LA and probably Pittsburgh have two that can be viewed as elite, many of the other "top" centers, save for a few, are not necessary a step above Stepan.
Positives:
Solid production:
Larry Brooks wrote the following:
Do you know how many players under the age of 24 as of last Feb. 1 recorded at least 101 points over the last two seasons?Six, and one of them is Derek Stepan.
Included within those 101 points is 44 in the lockout shortened 2012-13 season and 57 last year, second on the team, while playing with a slumping Rick Nash. Of those 57, he led the team with 40 assists and notched 18 points on the power play. Those numbers also came about following a slow start, which might have been due to his holdout before he signed his bridge deal and adapting to a new style under coach Alain Vigneault. The Bleacher Report noted that he tied for second on the team with 15 points in the playoffs, including playing the several games against Montreal and the entire versus LA with a broken jaw, which shows his toughness.
Defensively responsible:
We talk a lot about his defensive prowess but sometimes it gets overlooked. We believe that Stepan is a possible Selke candidate, based on his strong own zone play. That strong play has filtered across to Rick Nash on his line and resulted in Stepan also seeing time on the penalty kill.
Negatives:
Lack of skating ability:
This one has been one of the main criticisms of Stepan since he joined the team. To an extent, I think it's accurate, but I also believe it has been overblown. Stepan has shown the ability to get loose and score on a breakaway while also find a way to create off-man rushes with his skating ability. I still think he would benefit from power skating lessons, like what Brian Boyle did a few season ago, but I don't think it's as big of a black mark against him as it was in years past.
Weak on Faceoffs:
This one gets no argument from me. Stepan has historically struggled between the dots. As a rookie, he won just 38.5% of his draws in 2010-11, but he did rise to 44.5% the following year ad 45.9 % in 2012-13. Unfortunately, this past season, he took a slight step back to 45.2%. As the team's defacto top center, or even if he was the #2, that number is just unacceptable. Stepan must be closer to or above 50 percent in the faceoff circle. The ironic thing is that he had mentors he could have learned from last year in Brad Richards and Boyle and Dominic Moore, yet didn't. What might be scarier is if they did work with him and he still struggled. This area is one that adversely impacts Rangers' fans view of Stepan and one that could hold him back from getting viewed as a top-line center.
Not an "Elite" Center:
If you view an elite center as one who scores 100 or 90 or even 80 points, then yes, Stepan is not a top center. If you look who notched that total last year, and this list is impacted by injuries, as well as several who feel just short, only Crosby, Getzlaf, Giroux and Seguin hit that mark. Those that fell just short or would have hit the mark if not for injuries were Backstrom, Pavelski, Thornton, Malkin, Tavares and Stamkos.
Stepan is clearly a notch below all those. If you take a look at the top-two centers for each team, excluding those mentioned above, Stepan probably is below: Ryan Kesler, David Krejci, Patrice Bergeron, Eric Staal, Jonathan Toews, Matt Duchene, Nathan MacKinnon, Ryan Johansen, Jason Spezza, Pavel Datsyuk, Anze Kopitar, Jef Carter and Paul Stastny. He is closer to on par with Ryan O'Reilly, Brandon Dubinsky, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Mikko Koivu, Kyle Turris, Logan Couture, Tyler Bozak, Nazem Kadri and Valtteri Filppula, with Henrik Sedin possibly in there as well if he rebounds from a poor 2013-14 campaign.
From the lists above, there are 10 names in that first paragraph, 13 in the first part of the next one and nine in the last sentence. That's 32 names in total. You could probably argue that Stepan fits in close to some of the 13 and clearly in with the nine but is a pretty good amount below the 10. What does that all mean. Based on the above list, Stepan should be viewed somewhere with the top-30 or so centers, meaning he would be a #1 center depending on the team. For New York, he is that #1. Whether you believe he will or can be elite is another matter altogether. One of those 10 centers are definitely not coming through the door. Same with the next 13 or the next nine, and even if some of them did, many would not necessarily be an upgrade over what the Rangers currently have as the pivot on the top line.
If you look at the 10 from the first lists, all save for Seguin - who looks underpaid at $5.75 mil per year - and Tavares - grossly underpaid at $5.5 mil per season - are well above $6 mil per season. In addition, from the other two lists, several are above or near that magical $6 million threshold that many of us believe that Stepan can and will want after this season. What I am trying to point out is while many don't believe Stepan is a true #1 center, he can and has filled that role in New York. Maybe not as well as several on the 32 on that list would have, but pretty darn close to many, whereby viewing him as a top-center is not that far of a stretch, especially if his point total moves from let's say 57 to 65 this year.
Brooks wrote the following which is true: "If Stepan has any kind of a season this year (and why wouldn’t he?), the Rangers’ No. 1 center will be in line to nearly double his cap hit from its current $3.075 million when he becomes an arbitration-eligible Group II free agent next summer." Stepan is making $3.875 mil this year in salary, which will be the starting point for arbitration next year when he will be an RFA if a deal cannot be worked out. Assuming he has a reasonably good year, asking for at least five million and maybe more would be out of the realm of possibility. Given that Brassard was an RFA and wanted $5.5 mil before getting a long-term deal at $5 mil with salaries of $7 mil this year and $6 in 2016-17, if Stepan has 12 more points than Brassard as he did this year, would $6 mil really be a ridiculous ask?
Plus, if you compare him to several of the names above, even if that so-called second tier of #1 centers, $6 mil with a rising cap is pretty reasonable. Now you could use the aforementioned negatives against him and say give him less than that for a short term deal, but then you run the risk of losing him after the deal expires. Instead, you could be proactive, sign him for close to $6 mil a year for five years and lock up at worst a 2a and possibly a top-line center for what would be a reasonable contract with the expected rise in salary and production out of Stepan in the future.
Whichever way New York goes, I hope this gets done sooner rather than later avoiding arbitration earlier than the last minute that seemingly has become GM Glen Sather's pattern.
June 2013:
It might be a bit early, but it looks as if several sources are weighing in as to how much they expect the Rangers to pay to re-sign their RFAs. A variety of factors may impact this, including what happens with Brad Richards and if they elect to try and bring back Ryane Clowe. As of right now, the Rangers have approximately $13.4 million of cap space for 2013-14, during which the cap will be $64 million, down from $70.4 this past season, if Richards and his $6.67 million remain on the roster
In the NY Post, Larry Brooks predicts: Derek Stepan: 4/5 years with a cap hit of $4 million per
Scott Cullen of TSN predicts: Derek Stepan: $4 million per season
In the recent Hockey News, they predict: Derek Stepan: Between $4 million and $5 million.
My take:
Stepan - pretty amazing how everyone again is in lockstep. He is coming off his ELC, so normally the Rangers have gone with a bridge deal. However, given how valuable Stepan is to the Rangers and what he has produce, it’s wise to not go that route. Stepan last year produced, especially after a slow start, at the level of a top-line center. But that there is the big debate with Stepan. Is he a 1A, 1B or 2A? The answer to that call is what will drive the offer the Rangers make. In addition, you look at what Vigneault's style has meant to the skill players in Vancouver and then transfer that to what Stepan can do and you realize just how valuable Stepan can and most probably will be moving forward. In my opinion, if you can lock up a 23-year old, first or at worse high-second line center for five years at around $22.5-24 million, you do and don't look back.