Historic First Step

Derek Stepan wanted to approach it like it was just another game. But the game – and what he accomplished during it – was anything but ordinary.

On October 9, 2010, the 20-year-old Stepan made his NHL debut as the Rangers opened the 2010-11 season against the Buffalo Sabres in Buffalo. Before the second period had ended that night, he had not only scored his first career NHL goal, but he had recorded a hat trick, becoming just the fourth* NHL player to score three or more goals in his NHL debut.

“It’s absolutely wild,” Stepan said recently when reflecting on the rare feat that he achieved. “It was a very special moment for my family and me, and it still is.”

It had been just over two years since the Rangers selected Stepan in the second round of the 2008 NHL Entry Draft. Stepan’s father, Brad, had been drafted by the Rangers in 1985, and with the team’s selection of Derek, the two of them became the first father and son duo to both be drafted by the Rangers in franchise history.

“I was watching the second day of the Draft on that Saturday morning when my phone rang,” Stepan recalled. “Obviously my dad was with me, and it was really special for both of us – not only for me to get drafted, but to get drafted by the team that also took him.”

Stepan played with the University of Wisconsin for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons, and he also captained Team USA to a gold medal at the 2010 IIHF World Junior Championship. During the 2009-10 season, his 54 points were the second-most by any player in college hockey, and his 42 assists were tied for the most any player had. In addition, he helped the Badgers advance to the National Championship game.

While Stepan thought he would return to Wisconsin for his junior year in 2010-11, the Rangers took notice of his progression and felt he had accomplished everything he could in college.

“The original plan was for me to go back (for my junior year), but I got a call from the Rangers and they said they wanted me to sign,” Stepan recalled. “They definitely didn’t guarantee anything about playing in the NHL right away – Torts (John Tortorella) and Glen (Sather) were old-school and they weren’t going to hand me anything, nor should they have. You have to earn every stripe.

“From the conversations I had, though, I knew there was a chance that I could end up making the team.”

Stepan was given jersey No. 57 in training camp, and as the pre-season progressed, it became evident that he would make the Rangers’ opening night roster. He played in five of the Rangers’ six pre-season contests and tallied five points (three goals, two assists). Stepan scored a goal in each of the final three exhibition games, as well as a shootout goal in the second-to-last game against the Ottawa Senators at MSG.

The 20-year-old was named the winner of the Lars-Erik Sjoberg Award as the top Rangers rookie in training camp, and he was on the Rangers’ opening night roster. In recalling how the pre-season unfolded, Stepan said that he never got the sense he would make the team until right before the regular season began.

“I was so hemmed in on just playing,” Stepan said, “and I was trying hard to just take it one day at a time. My agent and everyone around me were just saying that we don’t know how it will turn out, but just keep playing well and keep making it hard for the Rangers (to send you down), and that’s what my mindset was.

“I played well during the pre-season, but it wasn’t right until the end of it where I felt I had a legitimate chance to stick around.”

Stepan was given jersey No. 21 – the number he wore at the University of Wisconsin and with Team USA at the World Junior Championship – after he made the team, and he prepared for his first NHL game in Buffalo. Stepan’s mother, his stepfather, and his girlfriend at the time (who is now his wife) drove from Minnesota to Buffalo to watch him make his debut.

Stepan played on a line with Sean Avery and Ruslan Fedotenko, who he had played alongside for several games in the pre-season. Just past the midway point of the first period, Dan Girardi took a shot from the right point that Stepan – who was at the right side of the net – deflected towards the goal. The puck caromed off the skate of Sabres defenseman Tyler Myers – who was battling with Avery at the front of the net – and trickled past Sabres goaltender Ryan Miller.

It was Stepan’s first career NHL goal and point, although he may have been the last person in the arena to know that he was the one who scored.

“I didn’t know I scored until I got to the huddle,” Stepan remembered. “I knew that I had deflected the puck, but I didn’t see if Aves touched it or not. Aves told me that he didn’t touch it and it was my goal, and that’s how I found out.”

The goal gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead. With less than five minutes remaining in the second period, and the Blueshirts holding on to a 2-1 lead, Marc Staal took a shot from the left point that Miller stopped, but Buffalo’s goaltender was unable to control the puck. Stepan got control of the puck and scored on the rebound for his second goal of the game.

“The second goal didn’t really have anything memorable about it,” Stepan recalled. “It was more or less a rebound in front of the net. I just remember saying to myself, ‘Whoa, I can’t believe I scored another one.’”

Three minutes after Stepan scored his second career goal, he completed the hat trick. Girardi sent the puck down the right wing boards and behind the net to Avery, who made a no-look pass to the slot. Stepan received the pass and fired a one-timer past Miller.

“It was an unbelievable pass by Aves,” Stepan said as he recalled the hat trick goal. “I’ll never forget it. He put it right on my tape. We got in the huddle, and the only thing I remember saying was ‘what a pass’ to Aves.”

MSG Network’s cameras were able to capture the reaction of Stepan’s family after his second and third goals of the game, and it was clear that there was a mixture of excitement and shock about what he had accomplished. Stepan felt those same emotions both at the time he scored his goals and when he had a chance to meet with his family after the game, which was a 6-3 victory for the Rangers.

“I think we were all kind of in shock,” Stepan said about the meeting with his family after the game. “To be one of four players to ever do this, it was a feeling of, ‘what is happening right now?’ I didn’t know what to feel.”

So, did Stepan finally feel secure with his spot on the roster after his memorable accomplishment?

“Not at all. My mindset was just to move onto the next game because I didn’t know what was going to happen. I still felt there was a chance that I wouldn’t be sticking around at that point. It wasn’t until about the 12^th or 15^th game of the season where I felt that I had made it.”

Stepan wound up playing in all 82 regular season games and five playoff games the Rangers had during the 2010-11 season. It was the start of a special seven-year tenure for Stepan with the Blueshirts, as the team made the playoffs in every season he was in New York, advanced to the Stanley Cup Final in 2014, and made two other trips to the Eastern Conference Final. Only four players – all of whom were teammates of Stepan’s – skated in more playoff games as a Ranger than the 97 he appeared in during his Rangers career.

While Stepan’s overtime goal in Game 7 of the Second Round in 2015 against the Washington Capitals is the moment he is perhaps most known for – “every time I run into Rangers fans, they talk about it,” he said – the hat trick he scored in his NHL debut is just as special.

“It’s something that I hold close to my chest still to this day.”

*Note – this excludes players who scored a hat trick on December 19, 1917, in the first games ever played in NHL history