The best player available.

The best player available.

With the buyout of Brad Richards, the Rangers created a hole at center. Assuming Derek Stepan is still slotting in as the 1C, the Rangers still have a hole at either 2C or 3C, depending on where you slot Derick Brassard. There aren’t many attractive options on the market, but the best player available is clearly Paul Stastny.

Let’s get the big thing out of the way first: Stastny will be expensive, but he will not (should not) be getting much of a raise on his $6.6 million salary. Stastny hasn’t sniffed 70 points since the 2009-2010 season, and his 60 points this past season were his highest since that year. That said, Stastny has also been playing behind Matt Duchene and ahead of Ryan O’Reilly in Colorado (holy depth Batman!), so he’s not getting the prime matchups either.

But Stastny’s worth goes beyond the stat sheet. Stastny not only puts up decent points, he’s a #fancystats darling.

Stastny was a positive possession player on a team that had worse possession numbers than the Calgary Flames. In face, Stastny’s +4.2% relative Corsi is pretty damn impressive when you consider the possession anchors on the club.

Another positive: Stastny managed to put up those numbers, both points and possession, with just 43% of his starts coming in the offensive zone. Oh, and he also faced top competition on a nightly basis. Seriously, check out this usage chart. The only blue circle (positive possession) is Stastny.

On the Rangers, Stastny would likely get the same zone starts that the departed Richards received, so about 66%. Try and imagine what Stastny could do with a 20% jump in offensive zone starts. I haven’t come across a projection here (if someone has, please let me know), but I’d reckon it would push him back to the 70 point area.

Depth down the middle wins in the playoffs. Stepan-Stastny-Brassard-Moore looks a lot better than Stepan-Brassard-???-Moore. The only downside is that, yes, Stastny is expensive, and will likely eat up all of the cap space saved when the Rangers bought out Richards, likely at the maximum seven year term. But at 28 years old, is Stastny’s contract length really a concern? Or is it just the dollar amount, with an always increasing cap?

At the right price, Stastny could be the piece that puts the Rangers back into the Cup Final.

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