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Derek Stepan

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good thing we traded him for a pick

this has been a steady climb. i have a feeling he's going to keep it up
 
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I said I'd be the first one to sing his praise, after a great game, and here I am.

Nice job, tonight. He needs to keep that intensity up. It's all mental with him. I almost feel like at times he thinks he's not good enough to be here.
 
I recall a lot of Stepan's goals coming from around the net Callahan style.

Maybe that is why they don't work well together???
 
He was much more physical, much more involved with the forecheck tonight.

He was slowly getting better, but took a big step tonight, driving the play instead of watching and waiting for a chance to step in.
 
Today, they said that Stamkos still works on his skating with Gary Roberts. Stepan really, really needs to work on that during the off-season.
 
ImIdaho said:
Today, they said that Stamkos still works on his skating with Gary Roberts. Stepan really, really needs to work on that during the off-season.
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His dad hired him a personal skating coach since he was 15 and trains vigorously in the offseason. He simply isn't gifted with speed like others are.
 
Antithesis said:
I recall a lot of Stepan's goals coming from around the net Callahan style.

Maybe that is why they don't work well together???
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Most of those plays are the result of a strong forecheck, something that hasn't been Stepan's best area as of late. Richards, for not being all that physical, has a knack for getting the puck below the hash marks, and both Hags and Dubi were great on the forecheck, and when the Pack line from years back was clicking, that was their best attribute.

If Stepan's line forecheck is going, you could see fireworks. If not, well we've seen how it looks.
 
Hagelin is a great forechecker and Pyatt is strong along the boards. It could work.

Richards, right now is getting too low, and doesn't have the speed to cover defensively. This leads to a lot of 3 and 4 on 2's the other way. Richie needs to stay a little higher, look for the slap shot from the circle.
 
Tortorella said:
His dad hired him a personal skating coach since he was 15 and trains vigorously in the offseason. He simply isn't gifted with speed like others are.
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I'm not expecting him to rival either Gaborik or Hagelin with regards to speed but he still seems..average.

If that's seriously the case, he should look elsewhere.
 
Antithesis said:
Hagelin is a great forechecker and Pyatt is strong along the boards. It could work.

Richards, right now is getting too low, and doesn't have the speed to cover defensively. This leads to a lot of 3 and 4 on 2's the other way. Richie needs to stay a little higher, look for the slap shot from the circle.
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Richards play has looked a little odd lately. I don't know what it is, focus, minor injury, chemistry, but his play hasn't looked quite as cerebral lately, and if his hockey sense isn't working, he's in trouble.
 
-shakes head-

...Amazing. Just amazing the things being written in this thread. The short sighted, short term memories of some of you guys is nothing short of incredible.

All for the good I guess. It will make the next few weeks that much more funny.
 
haveandare said:
Ding, ding, ding.

This is the truth. People need a player to come on here and whine about. Stepan is the whipping boy for now, just like so many other players have been in the past. Let's start an "irrational pessimism" thread and just throw all this garbage in there.

Great point about Cally too. 22 is too early to be making these sort of judgements on any player.
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I can't say that I have good track of all that has been posted on Stepan, but from my point of view its definitely legit to follow Stepan's development over the coming seasons and especially from a season to season perspective. And hence we should be talking about him early this season. And early next season.

Stepan has some outstanding abilities -- but overall he is not a good 2nd line center yet. When he was 20 y/o, I definitely expected him to be one this season. I expected him to have improved his jump a bit, to be able to cover more ice. That usually comes with natrual growth for a player who is 20 y/o. To be a bigger factor on a shift by shift basis than he has been so far.

But while he has rounded off his game, is better defensively and so forth, his jump hasn't improved much if any since his rookie year. That just worries me. It would definitely have worried me as much if we were 6-0-0. If it was one thing I, and many with me, took away from the PO's last season -- it was that Stepan at the level he is playing right now does not cut it as a 2nd line center on a CONTENDER. He must improve.
 
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Great game by Stepan and his line last night.

Happy that they produced some offense, but even happier that they CONSISTENTLY were on their toes and pressuring the opposition all night. Stepan and his wings, whoever they wind up being, need to play like that for this team to be successful.
 
KreiMeARiver said:
I said I'd be the first one to sing his praise, after a great game, and here I am.

Nice job, tonight. He needs to keep that intensity up. It's all mental with him. I almost feel like at times he thinks he's not good enough to be here.
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I think it's just that he has to keep up that "compete level" especially along the offensive boards. When he's contributing to the cycle and moving the puck around effectively is when he starts getting points, but for some reason he'll go into a kind of float mode every once and awhile.
 
hagelin stepping it up brought a lot out in stepan(and reverse), and pyatt winning battles on the boards to come clean with the puck was extremely important to their success. they all seemed to sync pretty well... i'm not sure if i'd rather nash with stepan or keep things as they are, but i def still feel we need to split our top and if stepan continues this stride he's going to be fine with anybody that you put him with. hags is coming back into last season's form. anywhere you put him his speed will make the difference. if kreider comes back where hagelin was last game we'd be golden (albeit kreider has a much lower stamina level)
 
KreiMeARiver said:
Standard soapbox post

It's more about people overvaluing an asset than it is that "a process that we don't understand".

Ideally, he's a 3rd line center (on a championship team).
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This is the question isn't it?

Are people overvalueing Stepan and jumping for joy if he has a rare great game?

Or are people like me just too green and not noticing subtle little things and wrong about the fact that this was just a rare great game (He has a drury-like penchant for having his stick in the right place that I like but the great passing and vision plays I saw in WJC and college I don't see very often at all)? I want to point out it's not imptience with me because he's roughly the same age as Artem was and I just wish we had Artie instead.
 
Stepan has outscored Arty and played more consistently than him for their careers so far...outscoring him this year even. And I like Arty a lot!
 
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