Derek Stepan Fractures Fibula In A Non-Contact Injury

The actual incident description Via @AGrossRecord:

“Stepan, back on the ice after missing two days due to a foot contusion initially suffered on Sept. 9 (the team did not skate on Tuesday as the Rangers held their annual golf outing) was participating in a full-rink sprint drill. But, shortly after pushing off and trying to get up to speed, Stepan collapsed to the ice on both knees around the far blue line, sliding through the neutral zone before coming to a stop in the opposite zone clutching at the area of his left knee. Stepan could be heard groaning in pain as he was attended to on the ice and then helped off by teammates Mats Zuccarello and Marty St. Louis.

Prior to today, coach Alain Vigneault had listed Stepan, who did not play in Monday’s 5-4 loss to the Devils in the preseason opener, as day to day and called the foot contusion “nothing serious.”

There’s no word yet – obviously – on the severity or nature of Stepan’s conditioning drill injury.”

If you follow any Rangers fans at all on twitter, you probably saw that Stepan went down with a non-contact injury when trying to gain speed today. Obviously really concerning when you combine it with the fact it was his first time in a few days due to the foot contusion he suffered from blocking a puck in a preseason game (Derek I love the effort, but for fucks sake, please don’t hurt yourself in a goddamn preseason game). Turns out it was a fractured fibula.

There’s no timetable yet on how long he’ll be out, and fibula’s can be tricky; sometimes it takes weeks to recover, sometimes it takes months. This is close to a disaster scenario for the Rangers if he is out for a long stretch however; The Blueshirts are thinner at the Center position than any other forward spot, and as much as I love Brassard, I don’t think he has it in him to be a bona-fide First Liner an entire season. We need JT Miller to step up in a BIG way, which Rangers fans have been waiting for for a while now, and hope that Kevin Hayes out of BC is the real deal. Hey, maybe he still has some of that chemistry he had with Kreider back in their days playing together for the Eagles (they’re also on the same line in tonight’s preseason game).

So yeah, this is pretty devastating for a team with aspirations of making a run at the Metro this season. They still could do it given the Penguins organizational chaos and lack of depth after their firesale this offseason (although depth is pretty overrated when you have Crosby and Malkin on your team), the dark spector hanging over Columbus due to the clusterfuck that is the Ryan Johansen contract negotiation, and the fact Flyers fans are saying things like “I hope Michael Del Zotto can really step up and have a great year.” But things look a lot worse than they did a few hours ago.

For now, let’s all just hope that fan-favorite and team leader Stepan is back on the ice sooner rather than later. Because I cannot handle this, this early in the season.