I love how people online (not here) are saying the Rangers way overpaid, he only had 55 points, etc. He had 55 points in 68 games, he didn't play a full season. He is a number 1 center, he is responsible defensively, he was a +26 which says a lot about his play, he is a penalty killer and power play guy, he is a solid faceoff man, and when it counts (the playoffs) he steps up and performs. Unlike that huge slug of a winger who disappears in the playoffs but makes $7.8 million a season, and it's been a long time since I've seen a guy that big afraid to throw a hit every once in a blue moon. I mean, come on man, you're a giant man and you let TJ Oshie paste you onto your rear end not once, but twice?
I think Stepan gets a bad rap here because of all the other ridiculously stupid contracts the Rangers hand out of trade for. Look at what other centers make these days, especially a number 1 center. Is anyone complaining about Anze Kopitar making $6.8, and probably going to make $7.5 - $9 million with his new deal? Kopitar had 64 points in 79 games, which is almost exactly what Stepan was on pace for, and Kopitar was a -2. The fans in LA aren't batting an eye and think it's great if the Kings give him upwards of $9 per season. Patrice Bergeron makes $6.875 million per year, a bit better defensively and faceoff wise then Stepan, but he had 55 points in 81 games and was only a +2.
Stepan is the best all around center on that team, he's only 25 years old and coming in to his best years, and without him that team is nowhere close to the same. I bet every other GM in the league would take Stepan in a heartbeat. Have people already forgotten who it was that won the faceoff and then got into position to bury the series clinching game 7 goal in the playoffs? It wasn't Rick "Lumpajello" Nash at $7.8 million, it was Derek Stepan at $3.85 million, and I think people forget that they strung him along on the last contract negotiation so they could overpay other slugs on that team.
wned:
