STEPAN OUT!
Rangers deal Derek & Raanti for Coyotes D-man
In a complexion-altering deal for the Rangers, the club traded top center Derek Stepan to the Arizona Coyotes, along with backup goalie Antti Raanta, in exchange for righthanded, 21-year-old defenseman Anthony DeAngelo and the No. 7 overall pick Friday night in the NHL draft.
Now two leaders and alternate captains in Stepan and Dan Girardi are gone from the Rangers as Jeff Gorton tries to find the right winning formula, clearly willing to break up the core from the last several years to do so.
“I kind of had a feeling that if it was gonna happen, that it was gonna happen to Arizona. So I wasn’t completely blindsided by it,” Stepan, previously aware of trade rumors, said on a conference call. “But anytime you get traded in this business, especially when you’ve been in an organization for seven years, you go into shock. You’re sad you’re leaving one home, but at the same time you’re really excited to start a new chapter of your life. I think that’s the way I’ve kind of looked at it.”
The Rangers owned two firstround picks, No. 7 and No. 21. They haven’t had a first-round pick since 2012 when they selected Brady Skjei.
Stepan, who turned 27 on Sunday, has a no-trade clause which kicks in on July 1. He has four years left on his contract with a cap hit of $6.5 million per season. Raanta has one year left on his deal with a $1 million cap hit. The Rangers now have roughly $20 million in cap space with free agency set to begin on July 1.
Gorton told reporters in Chicago, the site of the draft, that the trade was “a hard call to make,” but he wanted to create more cap space.
“Obviously we have money now, and we didn’t have it this morning,” Gorton told reporters. “That’s a big part of this trade.”
DeAngelo, a first-round pick in 2014 and a native of Sewell, N.J., had 14 points in 39 games this past season, his first in the NHL, and Gorton said DeAngelo can run the power play. DeAngelo was suspended three games this past season for violating the “physical abuse of officials” rule when a linesman had a hold of his jersey after a scrum and DeAngelo put his hands on the official’s arms to try to break away. Gorton said the Rangers did their homework on DeAngelo’s maturity level and didn’t seem concerned.
The Rangers drafted Stepan out of Wisconsin in the second round of the 2008 NHL Draft. He’s been part of the fabric of the club ever since he made his NHL debut as a 20-year-old, when he netted a hat trick in the first game of the 2010-11 season.
“I was able to come into an organization that really was in a good spot when I came in, and I was able to play in some playoff games, I was able to be part of some really good hockey teams and be part of a city that’s so passionate about their team,” Stepan said. “So the last seven years for me have been something that were a big part of my life and something I’ll never forget.
He has at least 53 points in each of the last four seasons, and while his point production may not be seen as commensurate with his salary, make no mistake that Stepan is a huge loss. He plays significant minutes on both the power play and penalty kill and constantly matches up defensively against the opponent’s first line.
“It’s something that in this sport, the more I’ve gone through it, the less surprises me,” Stepan said. “It’s something that as an organization the Rangers feel that — we’ve had some really good hockey teams, we’ve been really close, but in order for them to take that extra step over the hump, they have to make some moves.” With Stepan traded and Oscar Lindberg taken by Vegas in the expansion draft, the Rangers currently have Mika Zibanejad and Kevin Hayes as their only two clearcut centers for the time being.