I was waiting for somebody to make that dumb comparison. I'm shocked it was Al. It is a very dumb comparison. The two players are nothing alike. One, Dubinsky has never come close to doing what Stepan did last year. Dubinsky has never had a 30 game stretch where he had over a point per game. He's never come close to having a point per game season. His best year was 54 points in 77 games. The only stretches Dubinsky has is when he barely has a point over 10 to 20 games. Two, Dubinsky is a dumb offensive player. He has no offensive creativity. He doesn't make his line-mates better. Three, Dubinsky is a below average passer. Players like that never reach PPG or close to it status. Four, Dubinsky is a terrible PP player. Stepan is about the only reason our PP ever scores. He's a very good PP player. He just needs a coach who understands how to coach offense. Five, Dubinsky is lazy. He's lazy on the ice and lazy in his training. Stepan is not that way. Dubinsky is a player with great intangibles who should be better than he is at this point in his career. Comparing him to Stepan is absurd. Stepan has an offensive game that Dubinsky can't ever dream of. Most of us hoped that Dubinsky would be a 20 G 30 A center. That is a very good player when you factor in his intangibles. There isn't one person on this board who wouldn't be disappointed if that is all Stepan was. A 50 point player. There was a point where I thought Dubinsky was better all around than Parise. That was coming off his 54 point season. Parise is a good scorer but I think the rest of his game is vastly overrated. If you look at Parise's last two seasons offensively, they are not that impressive when you factor in he doesn't do much else but score. However, Dubinsky turned into an offensive imbecile after that 54 point season. Again, maybe this was the coach. This year in Columbus should really tell you what Dubinsky is.
It is Brandon Dubinsky. I think he was from Czech decent not Polish decent. He can still turn it around in Columbus. Stepan could be a lot better than him. I also thought Rangers had 1.4 million in open cap space. Since Cap Geek is saying they have 2.1 million in open space then they should have 6.9 million not 6.2 million in cap space. That should give them space to sign Stepan. It hey trade Girardi then it should be even more. Unfortunately this will go to the start of training camp.
No way will he get 5m, he's definately not worth much over 4 yet. If they gave him 5 then they're back to bad cap mgmt. again. The most they'll probably have after Powe/Asham/dman to the minors is probably around 5 total. I'd say for Stepan 4/18 is plenty fair. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they keep the avg. under 4 per.
Gee I'm sorry but the kid did lead the team in scoring...you had such a hard on for him...he has a bad season and now he is garbage the dimished mind of a soon to be 40 year old
Again Al, your comparison was stupid. He led the team in scoring with 54 points in 77 games. All that tells you is that the team sucked offensively. Stepan had 44 points in 48 games. You are trying to compare a player with a low offensive IQ in Dubinsky to a kid with a very high offensive IQ in Stepan. You are trying to compare a player that can't pass well in Dubinsky to a guy who is already one of the top 30 playmakers in the NHL in Stepan. It makes no sense. Dubinsky is basically a 20 G 30 A, good intangible forward on a great year. Stepan is on an entirely other level.
Stepan's is dump's latest binky, just like Dubi was way back when, so it's kind of a moot point to discuss as right now Stepan can do no wrong and Dubi can do no right with him. I will say that Dubi and Stepan are very different players and that Stepan's offensive potential does exceed that of Dubi's, but there is def merit to Dubi leading the team in goal scoring back in the '10-11 season. Cally and Gabby each missed 20gms that year and Gabby only had 22gls that season. Dubi at that time was projecting to be a very good, all around player but the year after that was very disappointing with only 34pts. This past season in Columbus he had 20pts in 29gms which prorates to about 56pts over 82gms, so he might be turning it around again. Next year is big for him. It's funny that only the hot 30gms for Stepan seems to be what counts when projecting him as a future (let alone current) pt-per-game player. What about the first 19gms where he only had 10pts, or the playoffs where he had 5 in 12. Why wasn't he a point per game player then? we really could have used more scoring in the playoffs when we couldn't score for crap. Because of those inconsistencies is that i'm not yet ready to call him a point a game player and obviously is never going to be in the same category is the Crosby, Malkin, Giroux, Stamkos of the world who are the 1st tier of centers. Stepan should settle in nicely as a type of player who gives you 60-65pts and plays solid 2-way hockey. Lot of value in that.
The discussion was not in any way 31 about the playoffs. Bringing that up was a dumb point. If you did some research you would clearly see that most all offensive players have their point production drop significantly in the playoffs. Teams play much tighter defense in the playoffs. Also, Dubinsky took 4 NHL seasons before he hit the 50 point mark. Stepan did it in his second season and the way he was going last year he probably would have finished with 70+ points over 82 games. Projecting Stepan 31 is not based on 30 games. It's based on opening your freakin eyes and actually watching the guy play offense. Dubinsky should have become a great second line center in this league. He's a fat, lazy, slob. His rep in junior was that he was lazy which is why he slipped into the late second round. If you remember, I did not like the Dubinsky contract at all when he got it. So for somebody you say I was so high on, you would think that I would have been OK with his contract. I wasn't. I stated he was overpaid badly. I also didn't like the Richards contract because of the length.
Plus, last year Stepan only had 10 centers in the entire NHL with more points than him I believe. That's after a slow start. When could you ever say that about Dubinsky after his first 4 years when he got that contract? Again, the comparison was foolish.
Stepan was also 21st in the league for scoring. 5 points away from being in the top 5 and he was absolutely on fire after a slow start. In comparison, Dubinsky when he had his 54 point season was 71st in the league in scoring. You are comparing two players that you simply can't compare. Not to mention if you buy into +/- at all, Stepan had the 4th highest plus/minus at plus 25 in the top 25 scorers. Only Crosby, Kunitz who mooched off of Crosby and Toews were better. I usually don't buy into that stat but sometimes it means something. In Stepan's case, the team was basically average all season so for him to be a plus 25 actually was impressive.
He still needs to get stronger and take more of a 'bull by the horns' mentality for the whole season. But he's a solid tier 2 C for sure.
Disagree. He's absolutely a number 1 center. Again, there were only 10 centers in the entire league that had more points than him last year. That's it. That's basically nothing.
again, let's see Stepan prove it over a full season that he's a 1st line center, not over 30gms. Until he does that he's just had a good 30gm stretch out of 200+ career games. Not sure why it's so difficult to grasp this.
To be fair I'd say he's a 1C/2A center right now, with the possibility of becoming a 1B over time. He's sort of in the Derek Roy/Ribiero class to me.
While I've been impressed with Stepan since his first game, I will say that he's not a point a game player. This is by no means a knock on his ability, he's just young still. I do see him having a great career, with a few seasons at a PPG level, I still feel he's a few seasons away from that. He is by all means a 1st Line center, especially on the Rangers, with Richards having an off year. Unless Richards turns it completely around and just flies out of the gate, expect Stepan to be the no. 1 center. To be perfectly honest, its not really a bad position to be in, one or two, I don't care. Richards needs to get better this year, and Stepan playing like he ought to all year will be a god thing. Sorry if thats hard to follow, I'm all dosed on pain meds. Stupid neck...
Roy and Ribero are awful defensive players. They are one dimensional. Stepan is not. What is hard to grasp 31 is that you can't seem to get it in your head that proven point per game players get 8 y, 64 million dollar contracts. This thread was about Stepan getting 4 Y and around 4 million. You are a completely moronic as an organization if you have a guy you think will be a PPG player and wait until he actually does it over 82 games before giving him a long term contract. If Stepan plays 82 games this year and has 75 to 85 points, you have NO Chance of signing him to less than 6 million a year at 6 years. If he did it two years in a row, you are looking at 8 y, 64 to 72 million. It's better to sign him now to a 4 year deal at 4 to 4.5 million.
umm having snipers like Gabby and Nash didnt help his almost point per game? Look I like the kid..but come on dump you were fucking glowing on how Dubi was going to be this great power forward, hard nose two way player...he got dicked by the organization with his early contract then scored big time..then he may have gotten lazy...or he could have been bounced around by the coach..what ever it was..his play sucked in his last season..i get that..but...we are basing stepan off one very good season ...lets see it again
