The Nashville Predators Need Complementary Pieces for Steven Stamkos
Dave Pagnotta of the Fourth Period joined Sirius XM NHL Network Radio with Gord Stellick and Scott Laughlin. He was asked about the Nashville Predators and Steven Stamkos‘s struggles. Pagnotta mentioned the Predators have been trying to find the right pieces for him.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
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Scott Laughlin: “Just looking at some of the numbers here as well, Dave. Cole Smith, Michael Bunting, Nick Perbix, Michael McCarron, Justin Barron, what do they have in common? They all have more points than Steven Stamkos to start the season in Nashville. So with one goal and two points in his first 10 games mentioned earlier, is this just Stamkos getting a little bit older, getting off to a slow start because of that? Or is there something in terms of roster construction with the Predators that indicates that they may not get the Stamkos of Tampa Bay, just because they don’t have anybody to get him the puck on a regular basis. How do you see the slow start for Steven Stamkos?”
Dave Pagnotta: “Yeah, it’s a bit of a not necessarily an interesting one for me, it’s more of a, I mean, look, first of all, I agree. I think he’s reached a point in his career where you need those complementary pieces to play with in order to excel, at least, offensively and numbers-wise, and it just doesn’t seem like he’s found or the Predators have found the right fit for him that complements his game.
And at the same time, look, this is a team that has been looking at elevating their center position for the last couple of seasons. You’ve got Ryan O’Reilly, holding down the fort up the middle and on the top unit. And I think they would prefer to have Stamkos on the right, as opposed to at the dot moving forward. They just haven’t been able to find that piece. And because of it, they’ve had to utilize Stammer back in the middle.
And, they just haven’t found a, that’s part of it, and then B, they just haven’t found the right pieces to kind of, play alongside them right now, with (Tyson) Yost and (Luke) Evangelista. We just haven’t been able to kind of get his game going. And its at this point of his career, at 35 you’re going to have to kind of find him; he’ll be 36 in a few months, you kind of want to have those pieces that allow him to do what he does best, and, feed him the puck and put it in behind the opposition to netminder.
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This is just kind of the nature of the beast, of his game and how his performance has evolved. You need to have, instead of being the driver, you need to have somebody to complement his game. I think that’s more so than anything what we’re seeing now from him at this stage of his career.
And it’s going to have to be up to Barry Trotz and the Nashville Predators, excuse me, to kind of find that piece that kind of allows him to excel.
NHLRumors.com Note: One quick note on this situation in Nashville. It is a similar situation to when the New York Rangers signed Chris Drury and Scott Gomez. The Predators have two of the same players in Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault. They only needed one goal scorer, not two, as they changed their entire identity. Do they look to change up the mix there?
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