I really don’t want to be made. And I’m really not. But I am VERY interested in how things are handled. How things are communicated. Transparency is important. Was JBB transparent with Stammer? It doesn’t seem like Stammer believes so, but I guess we will never know for sure.
It seems easy to understand tbh.
JBB wanted Stamkos to stay, but at the price he set because he saw what we all saw: Stamkos regressing in the most important parts of the game. So he could not allocate more cap to him, or it would have been detrimental to the successo of the team.
Stamkos thought he deserved more, as he still got 40G and such. But the two parties didn't find a middle ground that could work for both, so no deal came to fruition.
Obviously all this hurt Stammer ego, also because it was not the first time JBB outed him as "expendable" (asking him if he would.waive his NTC for Vegas once, not taking care of his contract last offseason, etc.).
But it's all part of a GM's job.