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Greg Wyshynski, ESPNOct 31, 2024, 07:00 AM ET
CloseGreg Wyshynski is ESPN’s senior NHL writer.
TAMPA — Everywhere Steven Stamkos looked, there was another memory.
The Tampa waterfront where he and his teammates celebrated two Stanley Cup championships on jet skis and party boats. The arena ice where he tallied so many of his goals (555) and points (1,137) in 1,082 games, all of them the most in Tampa Bay Lightning history. The long concourse he’d walk down on countless gamedays, past a narrow concrete rink where his son Carter would practice slapshots like his dad’s. The Zamboni entrance where Carter would gleefully obsess over the ice resurfacing machines in his father’s arms.
“Most of my life has been here,” Stamkos said, glancing around a lounge inside Amalie Arena. “This is where it all began as an 18-year-old kid. Where I grew up from a boy to a man to a Stanley Cup champion. Where I became a husband and a father.”
It still felt like home, but now he was a visitor. Stamkos stepped on the ice for warmups on Monday in a No. 91 Nashville Predators jersey: His new team, the one that handed him a four-year free-agent contract after a very public, very contentious negotiation with the Lightning failed to produce a new deal.
After 16 seasons, Steven Stamkos is no longer a member of the Lightning; and for the first time in 16 seasons, the Lightning didn’t have Steven Stamkos as their star on and off the ice.
“Steven Stamkos and the Tampa Bay Lightning are going to be synonymous with each other until the end of time. He did everything we asked of him for many, many years,” coach Jon Cooper said.
That is, until the Lightning asked something of Stamkos that he refused to do: Sign a significantly discounted contract extension to give them salary-cap flexibility.
Despite some potential for bitter feelings at how his Lightning tenure ended, Stamkos returned to a hero’s welcome at Amalie Arena on Monday night. Mike Carlson/Getty Images
Entering the final year of an eight-year,…
Source link : https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/42097005/nhl-2024-25-steven-stamkos-tampa-bay-lightning-legacy-nashville-predators
Author : Greg Wyshynski
Publish date : 2024-10-31 11:43:07
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