Save the date: July 27, two weeks from Monday, for Derek Stepan’s salary arbitration hearing with the Rangers.
We’re told talks between the parties haven’t quite even reached the preliminary stages of negotiating, with the Blueshirts yet to submit an opening proposal for a long-term deal to their 25-year-old center.
As such, it is impossible to predict whether the sides actually will get to a hearing that would yield a two-year award and would take Stepan to the cusp of unrestricted free agency. But if general manager Jeff Gorton wants to avoid one and keep the Blueblood in a Blueshirt beyond 2017, it likely will take an opening bid of six years at $39 million ($6.