It’s funny how it’s possible to watch prices rise and fall during the playoffs. One second, a player is worth, say, $5 million. The next, it seems $6 million would be a bargain.
So there lies Derek Stepan, who will turn 25 years old on June 18, is an alternate captain of the Rangers, and enters this summer as a restricted free agent with arbitration rights. The money was not something he was thinking about after his team was eliminated Friday night, a 2-0 loss to the Lightning in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final which ended its season.
But it’s something general manager Glen Sather has to be thinking about now, as Stepan proved to be a central cog to this team, both as a calming presence and as a play-making center on a team that is at its most shallow down the middle. With a tight amount of cap space, no matter how much or how little the ceiling rises, Stepan is likely near the top of the list of Sather’s offseason priorities.
“For the majority of the playoffs, we played really good hockey,” Stepan said after the season ended, with his team’s break-up day set for Monday at the team’s practice facility in Westchester. “We got this series, and give Tampa credit — it’s a good hockey team. We just weren’t able to beat them to four. That’s all it comes down to. We get it to a Game 7 on home ice, and it just wasn’t there for us.”
No, Stepan wasn’t able to score in that pivotal game, and neither were any of this teammates. The disappointment that came with that loss — the Rangers finished the regular season with the Presidents’ Trophy as owners of the league’s best record — was all too clear. On the night the Blueshirts needed a hero more than any other, they got none.
But that does not devalue the postseason Stepan had, nor the rest of his career as a Ranger, which now includes three conference finals in the past four years and one trip to the Stanley Cup finals. It has been 362 regular-season games and 80 playoff games for the kid from Hastings, Minn., who was taken in the second round (51st overall) after two years at the University of Wisconsin.
His five goals and 12 points in 19 games this postseason may not be overwhelming, but the timing of his best plays proved promising for the future — and just as promising for his bank account.
He scored twice in the first round against the Penguins, the second being a slick foot-to-stick play from in front on the power play in Game 5, the game Carl Hagelin won on a spin-around shot in overtime and allowed the Rangers to advance to the second round.
That series against the Capitals didn’t start all too well for Stepan, but when he was needed most was when he was at his best. In Game 5, with the Rangers down 1-0 and facing elimination, Stepan set up Chris Kreider for a goal with 1:41 remaining in the third period to send the game to overtime. In the extra frame, he then set up Ryan McDonagh for the game-winner, a dramatic turn of events that kept the Blueshirts alive.
Then in Game 7 of that series, Stepan had his shining moment, the overtime winner in the decisive game, his jump with his back to the Garden glass, with the smile on his face like that of a young kid, being by far the most joyous moment of this postseason for Rangers.
“It’s certainly a lot of fun,” Stepan said after that game, “but we have a lot of work to do here.”
Now the work to be done is by Sather, and by Stepan’s agents. The comparables are there for Stepan to start the negotiations at, say, a five-year term at $6.5 million per, and Sather is going to have put a value on what his young leader brings to the team besides just the points. On a squad that struggled to score through most of the playoffs, Stepan was one of its most consistent players at both ends of the rink.
“We’ve got a really special group in here,” Stepan said, “a really good group of guys.”
He is a central part of that group, and it’s up to Sather to figure out how much he’s worth.
