For 16 years, Steven Stamkos walked in the same doors, passed by the same people, turned the same corners. The hellos, the interactions, the steps became comfortable, familiar, part of the fabric of a life that wrapped itself around life in the Tampa, Florida area, around the Tampa Bay Lightning.
He got to know them. His family got to know them.
They became part of him.
When Stamkos returns to Amalie Arena as a visitor for the first time, when he walks in a different door and heads to a different dressing room, the memories will prick at him.
This was his life. These were his people. But not anymore.
“That’s going to be probably the toughest part, emotionally, is just the relationships that my family has had with everyone,” Stamkos said. “The workers in the rink, the staff, everyone within the organization, the friends we’ve made away from the game. That’s the part that gets you, I think.”
After spending the entirety of his NHL career with the Lightning since being taken No. 1 in the 2008 NHL Draft, Stamkos signed with the Nashville Predators as a free agent on July 1, agreeing to a four-year, $32 million contract ($8 million average annual value). On Monday, Stamkos will return to Tampa, playing in the building he called home as a visitor for the first time (7:30 p.m. ET; HULU, ESPN+, TVAS), when the Lightning (5-3-0) host the Predators (3-5-0).
“It’s hard for me to get there mentally or emotionally without physically being there,” Stamkos said at the start of the season. “Someone will bring it up and I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’ll be a lot of friends and family and stuff that are going to that game.’ But it doesn’t really click in, I think, until you are on your way to the rink and then you start seeing things and seeing people.”
It's a moment he never really expected to happen.
Up until the final minutes, until he was signing his name, Stamkos never fully believed that it was the end for him with the Lightning. Nor did anyone else.
“It was obviously tough,” said defenseman Victor Hedman, who was named captain of the Lightning in the wake of Stamkos’s exit, replacing the forward. “We kept in contact a lot, but on July 1, when we realized he wasn’t coming back, it was shocking and tough.”
Stamkos had come to define the Lightning over his 16 seasons with them, rising to the captaincy in 2014, playing the most games (1,082) in franchise history, also getting the most goals (555) and points (1,137), and winning the Stanley Cup twice (2020, 2021).
“One of the best ever to wear a Lightning sweater,” Hedman said in September. “Five hundred goals, 1,000 points, 1,000 games, two Stanley Cups, multiple awards, being the captain for over a decade.
“Everything speaks for itself, but just the person himself is going to be missed in the locker room, on the road, everywhere. It’s obviously going to be very different going into that locker room and not seeing No. 91.”
Stamkos, who has one goal in eight games with Nashville, is returning, likely to a thunderous ovation in an arena full of fans who still love him, who know what he meant to them and how badly he wanted to return.
