Stamkos settling into new home with Predators after 16 seasons with Lightning

NASHVILLE – The ink was barely dry on the contract before Kyle Milks reacted. He headed out to downtown Toronto in search of a new hat. Not one in the blue-and-white of the Tampa Bay Lightning, the colors he had been wearing for the past 16 years to cheer on his brother-in-law.

No, Milks was looking for something a little bit more … yellow.

One sporting goods store and four hats later, Milks had his prizes. It was not that long after, maybe a day or a couple of days, that Steven Stamkos was over at his parents’ house, having dinner, when Milks showed up, Nashville Predators hat on.

“That was kind of the first time I saw someone wearing anything other than a Lightning logo,” Stamkos told NHL.com. “It’s like, you flip the switch. Go Preds, now.”

It was, in some ways, funny, this entirely new life, this seismic change, distilled to a simple shift in headwear.

“Just at the end of the day, you stress over this huge, life-changing decision, and then something like that happens and you just laugh at it,” Stamkos said. “OK, yesterday, we’re diehard Lightning fans and now we’re diehard Preds fans. That’s how it goes.”

* * * *

Sure, that’s how it goes for so many in the NHL, those players who jump from team to team, those players who find themselves in need of a new contract and a new address once or twice or a handful of times over the span of their careers.

But for Stamkos, whose name was as synonymous with the Lightning as any in the team’s 32-season history, who had played only for Tampa Bay for the entirety of his 16-year NHL career, and for only one junior team before being selected with the No. 1 pick in the 2008 NHL Draft, it wasn’t ever how it went.

He worked in Tampa. He lived in Tampa. Tampa was home.

Until it wasn’t.

Despite everything Stamkos believed, right up until the end, the Lightning opted for a divorce from their captain, leaving him to seek a new employer on July 1. He found his match in the Predators, signing a four-year, $32 million contract.

In the three months since that day, Stamkos has moved his family — wife Sandra and three young kids — to Nashville, taken up residence in former teammate Ryan McDonagh’s old house, worked through the first new-to-him training camp since he was a rookie for the 2008-09 season, and now is set to make his Predators debut against the Dallas Stars at Bridgestone Arena on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; HULU, ESPN+).

“There’s just a different feel,” Stamkos said. “Not necessarily that you aren’t excited for every training camp, but when it’s something new and fresh, there’s definitely a different level of excitement.

“It was certainly strange at first, but I think after you get through that first day, you realize you’re playing the game of hockey. It’s the same anywhere you go. It’s just a different group of guys.”

Well, mostly.

Stamkos has found a motivated group in Nashville, a high-octane training camp run by coach Andrew Brunette – “a little more intense, or maybe a lot more intense than what I’m used to,” he said, calling it “a little bit of a wake-up call early in camp” – and a set of teammates more than happy to welcome him to the fray.

“I think he’s been surprised,” said Luke Schenn, who goes back with Stamkos to the under-18 World Junior Championship for Canada and who was teammates with him on the Lightning for two seasons. “Tampa has got a culture there where training camp, it’s a lot different than other places. They kind of ease into things a little bit. … The veteran guys, they can almost flip a switch when it comes to the regular season.

“Whereas most organizations and teams, it’s a little bit more of a grind in training camp. So I think that was a little bit of an eye-opener to him. I said, well, hey this is actually what the NHL is really like in terms of training camp.”

It was a fitting introduction. Because, without trying to set expectations too high for a group that is still a work in progress, there is a sense that this season could be different for a Predators team that hasn’t made it out of the Western Conference First Round since 2017-18, one year after losing in the Stanley Cup Final.

But before Stamkos can think about the Stanley Cup Playoffs, before he can try to help push his new team to new heights, before he can focus on the future he’s building in Nashville, he’s more concerned with a few small details.

“I’m more nervous about finding the dressing room tomorrow when I get to the rink than playing the game,” Stamkos said.

* * * *

When Stamkos was in Tampa, he knew everything so well, so intimately. He had 16 years of muscle memory, 16 years of walking in the same entrance and greeting the same security staff, 16 years of knowing how many steps away the training room was and what Jon Cooper demanded.

“When I was in Tampa, you close your eyes and I could navigate through the dressing room and know at what time on the clock where I’ve got to be,” Stamkos said. “That all is completely thrown out the window. Now, you don’t want to mess up any guys’ routines that have been here in Nashville for as long as they’ve been.

“There’s just that hierarchy and pecking order and respect – that’s been the challenging part for me. … You just have to find that new normal.”

But he’s done that before. He’s found new normals throughout his career, through career-threatening injuries and a blood clot, through surgeries and missed playoff games. He's seen challenges and he has met them.

This? This is still just hockey, in the end.

“The change is you’re just moving,” his father Chris Stamkos said. “I told him that, at the end of the day you’re still playing hockey, you’re just playing with a bunch of different guys.”

Yes. Yes, but.

But there was so much to learn and so many logistics to work out and so many unknowns.

“When you’re in one place for so long, everything is kind of old hat,” Stamkos said. “You know what to expect coming in – you know the guys, you know the trainers, you know the city, you just know everything. You’re the guy that people are coming to if they have any questions or concerns, asking, how is this practice going to be? How is this skate going to be.

“You’re usually the guy with all the answers and then you come and you’re the guy asking all the questions.”

He turned to some of the veteran Predators, like Roman Josi and Filip Forsberg, as well as Schenn, with whom he has gone on vacations with their families to Las Vegas and St. Barts and won the Stanley Cup.

He bought McDonagh’s place, moved his family in, and settled his kids in new schools, things that he had never had to think about before.

“That was obviously one of the areas I was worried about the most, when you have young kids and a family and you’re in one place for so long,” he said. “Now everything is new and you’re not sure how everyone is going to adjust, but that aspect has gone a lot better than even I expected. That’s been a pleasant surprise.”

* * * *

It was not until July 2 that it all started to feel real.

The day before had been too much of a whirlwind to have time for anything as mundane as feelings. There were so many messages, so many interviews, so many voices tugging at him. It took 24 hours for Stamkos’s brain to catch up to the life-altering decision he had made.

“You’re almost numb to any emotion,” he said.

The Lightning were no longer his team. The unimaginable had come to pass.

As former teammate Tyler Johnson put it, “I don’t think anyone ever saw that coming.”

“I’d say that next week was pretty tough in terms of us realizing and coming to terms of not being back with Tampa,” Stamkos said. “It happens pretty fast when you’re going through free agency. In the back of your mind, you think things are going to get worked out.

“As you get closer to July 1 and closer and closer, there’s always just that feeling that, ah, yeah, it’ll work out. And then you get there and it’s like, OK, you’ve got to make a decision here.”

Even as the season had gone on and no deal had materialized, even as the days ticked down to Stamkos becoming an unrestricted free agent as the eight-year, $68 million contract he signed on June 29, 2016, expired, his hope didn’t.

“I don’t know if you truly ever let it go completely,” he said. “Time will tell on that one. I don’t have a concrete answer. If I’m looking back on the whole situation, maybe I was a little naïve to hold out that hope, with how everything transpired with the summer before and not getting extended and going throughout the season and not having any talks and then after the season having a few talks and just getting some offers that I got, realistically, based on all of that information, I shouldn’t have been holding out any hope.”

He laughs, ruefully.

“But that’s just natural,” he said. “You have so many emotions and attachments to a place that you’ve been that you’re willing to look past that stuff because of how ingrained you are in a community. And when you have a family and kids, it makes the decision that much tougher.”

His head knew. His heart just couldn’t let go.

“I don’t know if you’re ever going to be over it completely,” he said. “But if I’m honest and I look back at how the whole process played out, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me how it ended.”

* * * *

But if Stamkos was bruised and battered by the lead up to July 1, the love and attention showered on him as free agency dawned was a balm. No longer was he unwanted. Instead, suddenly, he was in demand, showered with love – and dollars.

“That, in itself, was a gratifying experience, to hear what teams had to say,” Stamkos said.

It’s no wonder that Stamkos is a trendy pick to have a monster season, after putting up 81 points (40 goals, 41 assists) in 79 games for the Lightning last season. He is 45 goals away from 600 in his career, with 555 and 582 assists for 1,137 points in 1,082 career NHL games.

It's possible he could hit the milestone this season, rewarding the Predators for the faith they showed, the way they soothed the hurt and brought him into the fold.

“I don’t feel any extra because of what happened this summer,” Stamkos said. “I want to come in here and help a team get to the ultimate goal.”

To that end, the Predators added some huge names this summer, inking deals with forward Jonathan Marchessault and defenseman Brady Skjei, a push to get them into the NHL’s next tier.

But even if his departure from Tampa isn’t pushing him, isn’t creating an additional need to show the Lightning what he can do – or the Predators for that matter – that’s just who Stamkos is. It’s who he’s always been. It’s why he’s the all-time leader in points and goals in Lightning history. It’s why he has two Stanley Cup rings.

“I think he’s always motivated on the ice,” said Johnson, who played with Stamkos in Tampa for the first nine seasons of his career. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Stammer not motivated. I know he’s going to have a good year. He’s that kind of guy.”

* * * *

Somewhere, in one of Stamkos’s houses, in Tampa or Nashville or his parents’ up in Toronto, there might be a box, taped up, with all of the many, many pieces of clothing acquired over 16 seasons with the Lightning, the hats and jerseys and T-shirts, the bits of his life and his career that he gave to the city.

They may not always stay packed away. The years, the success, the Stanley Cup wins, after all, are not erased by a new address and a new name on his checks.

“I’ve had friends and family members even say, like, what do we do with all of our Lightning gear?” Stamkos said. “It’s not like the last 16 years never happened.”

But the page, now, has been turned.

He is settled in Nashville, his home for the next four years. His focus is on the Predators, on helping push them forward, on putting his stamp on another team, on another success.

“There’s no reason they can’t go very far, if not all the way to the Final,” said McDonagh, who spent the past two seasons in Nashville before being traded back to the Lightning in May.

That would be the goal. Another team. Another Cup. Another challenge, met.

“It’s not about personal accolades at this point or anything to do personally,” Schenn said. “He’s already accomplished so much, first-ballot Hall of Famer. I think it’s all about motivation to prove that he can come in and help another team win. He’s all in.”