Stepan Avoids the Nastiness

It was Derek Stepan's turn to undergo the rigors of an arbitration hearing on Monday, as his camp was going in looking for $7.25 million on a 1-year deal, while the Rangers were going in with a $5.2 million desire.

Instead of going through the process, the two sides came to terms on a long-term deal, signing a 6-year deal, which will put the cap hit at $6.5 million, a $39 million deal, all told.

This signing pretty much clears up all the necessary free agent work, in-house, for the Rangers, as they have a few roster spots, which are up for grabs, heading into training camp, which they can either fill with some already signed players or look to fill with whatever little space they have left to make signings with.

The Rangers forward got off to a slow start to the season, suffering a broken leg, just as the season got started.  Stepan missed out on the opening 12 games to the regular season and then missed a couple of games in the season, leaving him with 68 games played in total.  In those games, he was pretty productive, picking up 16 goals and 55 points, only 2 points shy of his career-high, ranking him 88th overall in pool scoring, while missing 14 games.

His playoffs were fairly productive as well, until the Lightning shut his line down in the Conference Finals and ousted the Rangers for a trip to the Cup Finals.  In 19 playoff games, he picked up 12 points, but was held off the scoresheet in the final four games of the Conference Finals, thus ending the trip.

There is a fair assumption for gains this year, given that he missed so much time last season, so it should be thought that he'll be hitting some new career-highs in points this season and should be considered a pretty good player in the early rounds of the draft.

The Rangers appear to be fairly steady in their roster lineup, losing a major player to retirement in Martin St. Louis and moving Carl Hagelin to the Ducks in a cost-saving move, but that shouldn't affect Stepan too much.  His gains will be there, but they may not be as great as they could be, unless someone steps up and combines with his talents in an incredible way.  Expect more from him, but don't expect too much.

With Stepan now in the mix, I have the Rangers in with 11 forwards with locked in jobs, six defensemen and a goaltending pairing of Henrik Lundqvist and Antti Raanta.  I am not overly certain that guys like Viktor Stalberg or Raphael Diaz are locks for the team, so they're on the outside looking in, so I have their remaining cap space in at $4.18 million for three or four roster spots.  The Rangers have some stock in their reserves, including young defenseman Dylan McIlrath, so they have some entry-level deals, which they can use.  They may run with 22 players to start the season, try to exercise as much cap space as possible.