On the intersection of cohesion and cold-hearted enterprise, the Tampa Bay Lightning discovered themselves separating one of many NHL’s closest, most profitable and longest-running duos this week.
Victor Hedman hadn’t absolutely processed the fact of Steven Stamkos’ being walked into free company whereas he was signing a four-year, $32 million extension with the Lightning on Tuesday.
You’ve by no means seen a man so downtrodden after securing a big-ticket contract that runs into his late 30s. Hedman couldn’t even convey himself to smile.
“Clearly, it’s tremendous unhappy to see your buddy go away and go play some place else,” he stated from his offseason residence in Sweden.
That they had performed collectively since 2009 — showing in additional than 1,200 video games apiece for the Lightning and twice kicking off the workforce’s Stanley Cup procession after reaching the top of the game.
Stamkos and Hedman pushed one another by laborious practices and carried their aggressive nature over to the golf course every time downtime allowed. They grew up collectively, attended one another’s weddings, began households and by no means dreamed of a day when Stamkos could be signing with the Nashville Predators whereas Hedman was receiving a contract with an identical phrases from the Lightning.
“It’s going to be laborious to think about going into our locker room and going into Amalie Area and never seeing him on the ice,” Hedman stated. “It’s going to be tremendous, tremendous bizarre.”
Fact be advised, issues had been just a little bizarre between Stamkos and the Lightning’s entrance workplace for some time.
That helps clarify how we arrived at a breaking level.
Stamkos nonetheless doesn’t absolutely perceive why basic supervisor Julien BriseBois let all of final summer season cross with out even broaching a dialogue a couple of potential extension — a frustration the Lightning captain voiced publicly on the opening day of coaching camp in September.
Trying again after signing his personal four-year $32 million take care of the Predators on Monday, Stamkos recognized that as the start of the tip.
Or, as he put it: “The beginning of the writing on the wall.”
Nonetheless, the perimeters engaged in a collection of negotiations this offseason that stretched into final week. They explored a number of contract ranges and prospects earlier than finally specializing in a long-term deal that may hold the AAV as little as potential and protect the membership’s means to navigate the wage cap.
BriseBois is a decisive thinker who’s unafraid to make unpopular or unorthodox choices, lots of which helped construct these Cup-winning groups in 2020 and 2021.
Although understanding absolutely who Stamkos is and the way a lot he means to Tampa — “I’ll say he’s the very best spokesperson perhaps within the league for a corporation,” BriseBois stated. “He’s extremely eloquent, genuine, sincere, considerate, insightful” — the GM approached the contract talks with a selected view of how the subsequent Stamkos deal needed to match into the Lightning’s total image and didn’t veer from it.
“In the end, there have been situations and totally different constructions and methods to place a contract collectively that had been, I felt, in the very best pursuits of the group,” BriseBois stated. “There have been varied ones that might have labored out. Steven had a number of contracts that might have labored for him, however finally there was no overlap, and that’s why we didn’t get a deal achieved.”
The Lightning’s greatest supply on an eight-year time period was someplace within the vary of a $3 million common annual worth — considerably much less in complete than Stamkos obtained on his four-year contract from Nashville.
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Now, it’s not fully honest to check apples to apples.
What he would have accepted to stay in Tampa and what he pursued on the open market had been two various things, Stamkos stated.
“While you’re in a single place for a extremely very long time, you’re all the time making an attempt to make it work and keep and there’s concessions from either side,” he stated. “In order that was a totally totally different scenario from being a free agent on the open market and groups actually going out of their solution to present how vital you’d be when you had been in a position to be introduced into their organizations.”
Stamkos was prepared to present a hometown low cost. However because the July 1 opening of free company approached, he felt like he was being requested to present again greater than he would obtain in return.
“That’s the hardest half, is making an attempt to hold on to one thing that perhaps isn’t making an attempt to hold on to you,” he lamented.
Distinction that with the way in which the group handled Hedman’s scenario, locking him as much as a brand new deal a full yr out from unrestricted free company. The Lightning did the identical factor with the massive defenseman in 2016 after first letting Stamkos get inside two days of changing into a UFA, and the group even utilized a special strategy to their second NHL contracts earlier than that.
With former GM Steve Yzerman on the helm, Stamkos’s entry-level contract was allowed to run out in 2011 despite the fact that he already had a 50-goal season below his belt, and Hedman signed an extension with seven months remaining on his.
It’s extra about philosophy than something private: The Lightning are betting {that a} 6-foot-7 defenseman who skates just like the wind and has performed greater than 20 minutes per recreation for 15 consecutive seasons is harder to exchange than an elite shooter coming off a 40-goal, age-33 marketing campaign who must proceed producing offense to be efficient.
BriseBois defined that Hedman’s scenario is the exception quite than the rule, noting that the majority star-quality NHL gamers in recent times have needed to wait for his or her fourth contract as a substitute of signing an early extension — naming Patrice Bergeron, Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Joe Pavelski and Claude Giroux as examples.
Plus Tampa Bay feels it already discovered its Stamkos alternative by signing Jake Guentzel to a seven-year, $63 million contract Monday. He’s 5 years youthful than the departed captain and a famous big-game scorer who BriseBois believes will match proper into the workforce’s tradition.
“He’s a Bolt who occurred to haven’t been taking part in for the Bolts prior to now,” BriseBois stated. “Immediately we form of remedied that.”
Although this wasn’t how Stamkos or the Lightning’s entrance workplace envisioned issues taking part in out, they remained extremely respectful whereas describing the circumstances that led to a break up.
BriseBois lauded Stamkos as a future Corridor of Famer and wished his household happiness. Stamkos expressed gratitude for the way “first-class” the group and town had been to him.
“The reminiscences that I’ve had in Tampa will trump no matter in poor health will or emotions I’ve had all through this course of,” Stamkos stated. “These are short-term. These are emotional choices, and you already know as time passes these often go away.”
What is going to stay unbroken is his tie to Hedman, even when solely one among them will get the prospect to spend his total profession with the Lightning.
“Earlier than we’re teammates, we’re nice associates, and we’re all the time going to be,” Hedman stated. “Greatest-case situation, yeah, we’d have cherished to complete our careers in Tampa and collectively. However this hockey is a enterprise on the finish of the day.”
(High picture of Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman: Christian Petersen / Getty Photographs)