By Canadian Press

Stamkos finds peace again in Tampa following noisy free agent season

Oct 26, 2016 | 8:30 AM

A cloud hovered over Steven Stamkos and the Tampa Bay Lightning every day last season.

The cloud was really a question mark that nobody could escape: would Stamkos, then a pending unrestricted free agent, stick around or bolt to play elsewhere? He and the Lightning tried keep the uncertainty from taking over, even reaching a second straight Eastern Conference final.

“But deep inside you know that it has to be on his mind,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said this week. “Everybody thinks about ‘Where’s my future going to take me? Am I moving? Am I switching teams? Do I want to do that?’ Then you’ve got all that outside noise, too. Turn the TV on and it’s being talked about. Every building you have to answer questions. There’s no question that weighs on you.”

Stamkos ended the suspense two days before July 1, re-signing in Tampa for eight years and US$68 million. But for the 11 preceding months, the speculation was endless. 

Tampa’s captain tried to keep thoughts about his future at bay, but they were in there somewhere, he said.

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Stamkos is a star in the prime of his career so the question wasn’t whether he’d get paid, but where. Tampa? Toronto? Detroit? Montreal? Buffalo? New York? 

Teammates opted to leave the matter alone. They didn’t want to pry into contract matters or be yet another voice in the captain’s ear. Tyler Johnson, the Lightning’s 26-year-old centre, has a personal policy: he won’t talk contracts with anyone. Even last summer, as the drama rose higher, Johnson checked in only casually with Stamkos. He only found out that his teammate had re-signed when a buddy noticed the news on social media and alerted him.

Ondrej Palat, another teammate, also heard the news on Twitter. Defenceman Anton Stralman recalled reading it in a newspaper. That was just how the Lightning approached the matter. They weren’t going to dig into it like everyone else.

“As a team I think everyone just kind of pushed it to the side and just went on like it was normal,” Johnson said. “Because you never know what’s going to happen.”

“Everybody hoped he was going to sign,” Palat added.

But it wasn’t just Stamkos’s future the Lightning needed to rectify: the clock was also ticking to varying degrees on new contracts for Victor Hedman, Alex Killorn, Nikita Kucherov, Andrei Vasilevskiy and Ben Bishop.

Signing Stamkos was only one part of a much larger puzzle for general manager Steve Yzerman.

Yzerman and the Stamkos camp kept a lid on contract talks throughout the season, but the secrecy only produced more intrigue. The longer it dragged on the more it looked like Stamkos might sign elsewhere. 

Teammates were anxious.

“I mean yeah,” Palat said. “He’s our captain, he’s our leader and there were a lot of rumours he was going to leave or something like that.”

Trips to Toronto, a hotly rumoured destination, became circus-like sideshows focused entirely on the Markham, Ont., native returning home to play for the Leafs. A late-season blood clot, which kept Stamkos sidelined for all but one playoff game, only heightened the tension as did a visit with the Maple Leafs during the free-agent courting period.

All of which makes this season so different for the Lightning and their captain. Though Bishop remains unsigned beyond this year, the only real question about the Lightning is whether a first Stanley Cup since 2006 is in order. Cooper and Stamkos’s teammates sense a captain finally at ease.

“Now, it’s just come to the rink and have some fun and do what you’ve got to do to help your team win,” said Stamkos, who matched a career-high with four points in a 7-3 win over the Leafs on Tuesday night.

“And (they know) when they come into a scrum like this that the first question’s not going to be ‘Where you playing next year?’” added Cooper.

Stamkos apparently had no moment of clarity after re-signing, no point when he looked around and realized he made the right choice.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a doubt in my mind since I made the decision,” Stamkos said. “That’s why you do all the due diligence, you do all the question and answers and all that stuff so that when you make that decision you look yourself in the mirror and realize you made the right one.”

Jonas Siegel, The Canadian Press