ThunderRoad
Registered User
I get that but we weren't going to pay him the same AAV that his current contract was at, and by everything from Stamkos, which he's always been pretty honest by all accounts, he understood that and wasn't asking for that from Tampa.No discount for the team like captain cups i see.
Stamkos did it for the last game versus Florida, but that wasn't there all season. We still need a goal scorer.
And for the whole season thing, I will keep coming back to the brain child of Cooper or Blashill or a combination thereof, that changed the system this year, away from the one that achieved the Cup runs. Look across the board at every guy on the team, and it didn't work, except for Kucherov.
Was Stamkos a liability in this new system - apparently, but then so were just about everyone else. Maybe the players were finally getting comfortable with it by the end of the year, or the coaching staff did make adjustments or plan to, but singling out Stamkos is pretty disingenuous.
Of course we couldn't sign him to $8M for 4 years, and unlike Hedman, he isn't as critical (since beyond Hedman and now McDonagh, it's a cliff), but that was never the ask from Stamkos' camp - I will definitely buy he was willing to see his salary reduced to stay.