Derek Stepan is doing just fine

As the Rangers continue to dominate the opposition with their speed, skill, and depth, one forward has become a rather polarizing player lately. Derek Stepan has been on the receiving end of a tremendous amount of backlash this season, likely due to his one goal in 14 games to go with his $6.5 million cap hit.

What is conveniently ignored in these discussions is that Stepan has nine assists for a total of ten points. He leads the team in assists, is tied for third in points, and is tied for the team lead in powerplay points (4) and powerplay assists (4). Stepan is on pace for a line of 6-59-65 over a full 82 game season.

But let’s be real: Stepan isn’t going to score only six goals. He’s shooting an amazingly low 4% right now, compared to his 11% career average. He’s on pace to shoot 152 times (26 SOG thus far), and assuming he comes back to his career average –about a 13% shooting rate from now until the end of the year– then he may put up another 16 goals from now through the end of the season (152-26 SOG, multiplied by the 13% shooting rate to get to his career average).

That’s what to expect from his career averages. But this year seems different. Stepan is deferring more to his linemates, especially on the powerplay. This is likely due to the increased number of pure shooters on the club, putting Stepan in a role in which he is better suited.

Stepan hasn’t been perfect. He’s a sub-50% possession driver at the moment, but he’s at 53.6% SCF. So while he’s not exactly helping to drive significant quantity of shots, he’s helping drive quality shots, something in which the Rangers are tops in the league. Stepan plays a big role in that.

Stepan is not an elite player in the Crosby, Malkin, Kopitar level. However that doesn’t stop him from being a quality 1C for a high scoring team. His current pace is for 65 points, which last season would put him in the top-11 scoring centers. That’s ahead of guys like Spezza, Monahan, Getzlaf, Krejci, Carter, and O’Reilly. The majority of those players make more than Stepan too.

There’s a lot of hockey left to play, and there is always room for improvement from everyone on the roster. Worrying about Stepan’s play, when it has been fairly solid thus far, is probably the last item on my list of things to worry about for this team. He will be fine. He has been fine.