Debby Wong-USA TODAY Sports
According to a report in the New York Daily News last week, the New York Rangers are going to try to sign restricted free agent center Derek Stepan before the start of training camp.
Aww, isn’t that nice?
I would surely hope so since I highly doubt any team would want to go into the season, or preseason for that matter, without their top center under a contract.
Stepan has done nothing wrong in his career with the Rangers and has only gotten better and better. In my estimation he will continue this upward climb for years to come.
I see nothing that would warrant the Rangers not wanting Stepan and let him walk this season. That would be the most shocking news of the 2013-14 season, unless of course Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins suffers from a hangnail at some point during the year.
With that dreaded offer sheet looming like it’s the big bad wolf, I still doubt any team would send one Stepan’s way because, as I have stated before in previous articles, the compensation for a player like Stepan would be too costly for pretty much any team to take.
Unfortunately not every team’s GM is all that wise. See the Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers if you want prime examples of that theory. So with those few GMs out there that would risk sending Stepan that offer sheet, this is why the procrastinating on the Rangers’ part has to end. If Rangers’ GM Glen Sather is wise, which is very questionable, then he would waste no more time and sign Stepan before training camp, which should have been an obvious task to begin with.
Steven Carollo is a New York Rangers’ and sports writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter, like him on Facebook, and join his Google network.
