Derick Brassard has developed beyond all reasonable expectations for the Rangers this season. Brassard’s regular season alone (full of career highs) justified Glen Sather’s faith in the talented pivot last summer and one year into his new five year deal has his 5m cap hit looking like a bargain. If the cap ceiling goes up anytime soon Brassard will look even better value moving forward.
Brassard is a huge reason why the Rangers enter Wednesday’s game seven showdown against the Capitals with a chance to return to the conference finals in back to back seasons. Brassard leads the team in points, goals, powerplay points and shooting percentage amongst main offensive statistics. He’s quietly doing it all for the Rangers during a postseason where his team have struggled to score consistently. His performances over the past two playoffs, but particularly this postseason show a player that, while not perfect, is continuing to improve and who has produced on the biggest stage.
The Rangers center should certainly shoot more and he’s often criticised of passing up quality shooting opportunities and he certainly has an underrated shot. Brassard currently sits fifth in playoff goal scoring and his goals have kept the Rangers ticking over this spring. The Rangers have scored a meagre 22 goals in the playoffs thus far (only Pittsburgh averaged less than the Rangers 2.00 goals per game) and Brassard has 5 tallies while assisting on 3 others. He’s produced all this despite missing regular linemate Mats Zuccarello.
Brassard is easy to root for. His passion and enthusiasm have been both obvious and infectious and he has often played up to the level of competition as evidenced by his consistently strong play against Sidney Crosby in particular. It seems that Brassard grows when the spotlight is on him.
Over the past two playoffs Brassard has been a solid producer, riding a hot streak into the playoffs two years ago to score 12 points in 12 games while chipping in the same points total last year in the Rangers’ run to Cup final but this year Brassard has never been more important. His 5 goals in 11 games is one less than his total in 23 games last year but last year the Rangers were averaging over half a goal per game more than this time around, meaning his production has never been more meaningful.
In a series as tight as this Capitals second round series has been, it stands to reason that game six was the offensive exception to the defensive rule and Wednesday night could well be another close affair. Entering game seven the Rangers will be confident because they can turn to Henrik Lundqvist who has (so far) been unbeatable in series deciders at the Garden, but it’s entirely possible that Derick Brassard could be the difference maker on Wednesday. Brassard has grown steadily throughout his Ranger career and has proven to be a clutch performer. Wednesday would be a great time to underline his development into a critical Ranger.
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