Central Division team named as potential fit for Steven Stamkos

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Cooper Godin
March 13, 2024 (5:10 PM)

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While the Tampa Bay Lightning have their sights set on a seventh consecutive appearance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, they have a big name on their roster that's set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer - Steven Stamkos.

It's expected that the Lightning will try their hardest to re-sign Stamkos before he hits the open market on July 1st, but if he doesn't stay with Tampa Bay, there will be plenty of teams looking to bring him into the fold.

While on The Jeff Marek Show on Wednesday, ESPN's Greg Wyshynski shared that, while he believes the Lightning will re-sign Stamkos, one team he's heard that could be an option for the 34-year-old is the Nashville Predators.

"Oh, I heard one the other day that I loved. Nashville. Wouldn't Nashville be great for him?" Wyshynski said.

He went on to say, "Think about where he is. Maybe he's a guy after his time, you know, in the sun, on the jet skis, wants to go play in a super pressure market and get the rub that you'd get when you play in Boston or play in New York or play in Toronto. Or he says, 'I've never wanted that' and goes to another place that has one beat writer like Nashville. I don't know what he wants. I do know they can afford him and I do know that with the maturation with this team, being a playoff team this year, having a good core of young players and a really good coach in Brunette, I think he could do pretty well there as a mentor/guy who can probably score a ton of goals on the wing for them if he wants to."

Stamkos, a native of Markham, Ontario, has spent his entire 16-year career in the National Hockey League with the Tampa Bay Lightning, putting up 1,111 points (539 goals, 572 assists) in 1,065 games and winning a pair of Stanley Cups with them in 2020 and 2021.

It's hard to envision Steven Stamkos with any team other than the Tampa Bay Lightning, but he would be a solid fit for the Nashville Predators with a core of Roman Josi, Filip Forsberg and Juuse Saros, along with top prospects such as Yaroslav Askarov and Joakim Kemell on the verge of breaking into the NHL.

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