After an early playoff exit, where will Steven Stamkos play next season?
Has Steven Stamkos played his final game with the Tampa Bay Lightning?
It’s the kind of question that will fuel debates around the hockey world for the next two months — or, at the very least, until he re-signs. The last time Stamkos needed a new deal, he waited all the way until June 29, 2016 and was courted by numerous other teams before re-upping with the Bolts on an eight-year pact.
Stamkos is coming off his seventh career 40-goal season with the Lightning. He’s won two championships with the team that drafted him first overall back in 2008. Yes, he just turned 34 in February, but he did his part in the playoffs with five goals in five games against the Florida Panthers and seems to love it in Tampa.
But … then again, Stamkos still doesn’t have a contract for the 2024–25 season and beyond. With nothing about his situation fully certain, our question for this week’s Daily Faceoff Roundtable is simple: Where will Steven Stamkos play next year?
MIKE GOULD: The easy money here is on the Tampa Bay Lightning, and it’s probably where he’ll end up staying, but I don’t want to take the obvious way out, so I’ll pick the Detroit Red Wings. After winning everything there is to win with the Bolts, what better motivator would there be for Stamkos than to bring playoff hockey back to the die-hard fans in the Motor City, while also reuniting with his old buddy Steve Yzerman? Mind you, the Red Wings need a lot of help in other areas — their defense is patchwork (at best) and they could use an upgrade in net — but a guy like Stamkos would be a pretty seamless fit in that team’s top six, especially if Patrick Kane goes elsewhere as a free agent. Detroit isn’t all that far from home for Stamkos, either, and the Red Wings have a decent amount of cap space to play with (although they could probably stand to ship out one of their expensive veteran defenders). Either way, it’s a fit that makes quite a bit of sense for both sides on the surface.
MATT LARKIN: Thanks for taking the reins this week Mike. If I had to pick a team other than Tampa, I really like the Detroit idea. It would be a perfect fit. That said, I honestly believe he stays with the Tampa Bay Lightning for life. At every turn, Stamkos has expressed his desire to do so. And while GM Julien BriseBois seemed noncommittal when asked about the contract at the beginning of this season, he spoke with a lot more conviction about his desire to retain Stamkos during the team’s season-end media availability this week. The lack of state income tax strengthens Tampa’s ability to keep Stamkos on a mutually beneficial deal. I predict he re-ups for three years at $7 million per.
STEVEN ELLIS: I’ll go the easy, lazy route: Tampa Bay Lightning. We were all fooled the first time around and I can’t see them moving on from him right now. He’s still so important to the Bolts, their core, etc. Maybe I’m just not ready to accept that their dynasty is crumbling away, but I think this team takes a big step forward with a fully healthy Mikhail Sergachev and an offseason of rest from Andrei Vasilevskiy. They started behind the 8 Ball, had to play catch-up and it eventually was too much. And I think the Lightning think that too, especially if they keep coach Jon Cooper. I think we’ll see Stamkos spend the last few competitive years he has left with the Lightning.
FRANK SERAVALLI: You guys are too hard on yourselves. I don’t think it’s easy or lazy. I think staying with the Tampa Bay Lightning is the right call for both player and team. It’s abundantly obvious that Stamkos wants to be there. He’s done the song and dance before, he learned by visiting the Maple Leafs that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. And since then, he’s begun a family, set down roots in Tampa Bay, and oh yeah, won two Stanley Cups. He is a Mount Rushmore player for the franchise. He’s also still incredibly productive, hitting 40 goals and not appearing to show any signs of slowing down having just turned 34. The bigger question was whether Julien BriseBois and the Lightning wanted to keep Stamkos. BriseBois seems to have answered those questions well enough. I don’t think the contract part will be too difficult to work out. And since the Lightning don’t have a first-round pick in 2025 and have Victor Hedman and the rest of the crew under contract, they really don’t have the incentive just yet to begin tearing it down.
SCOTT MAXWELL: Look, is Stamkos going to re-sign with Tampa Bay? Probably. That should be the answer I go for. But I’m going to have fun and play devil’s advocate. And I’m not going to be lazy and go with one of the teams he looked at last time (Buffalo, Detroit, Toronto). Instead, I’m going to go out of left field a bit here: the Nashville Predators. For Stamkos, it’s not too much farther from Tampa, Tennessee is still a tax-free state, and you can join a team that’s on the way up, not on the way down like Tampa. And for Nashville, their first round series against the Canucks has shown that they clearly need some more finishing talent, Stamkos is one of the best ones on the market, and he fits the mold they seem to be going for of bringing in players with experience and leadership. Oh, and Nashville probably has the cap space to pull it off and maybe overspend to entice Stamkos away from Tampa. It probably won’t happen, but it was something I thought about and thought that maybe it could work.
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