On Steven Stamkos and the Tampa Bay Lightning …
Chris Nichols of Today’s Slapshot: Bob McKenzie on TSN 1050 on Steven Stamkos and the decision for him and for the Lightning.
“If he decided, I suppose that’s always a possibility. It’s easy enough to put signals out. But that’s the whole point. I absolutely 100 percent believe Steven Stamkos hasn’t decided anything. Not even close to deciding. In fact, that saga is really, in many respects, just getting going now.
“There’s going to be an incredible amount of pressure on both the Tampa Bay Lightning and Steven Stamkos with each passing day to get a deal done. And it’s going to be very difficult for both parties to go down the road of divorce. Not saying it can’t happen, but especially when the team plays well, and especially when Stamkos plays well. That’s the perfect storm for pressure.”
The Lightning are being careful with how much money they want to invest.
“Now, having said that, there’s no question the reason we’re even talking about it in March is because Steve Yzerman and the Tampa Bay Lightning would appear to have a philosophy of, ‘We’ve got to be really careful here. We just can’t throw around $10 million contracts willy-nilly and expect to build a team with guys like Johnson and Killorn and Palat and Kucherov and all of these young guys at various times over the next one, two, three years, all coming due for contracts. So we need to be really judicious here.’ But judicious isn’t going to get it done.”
On the Winnipeg Jets …
Tim Campbell of the Winnipeg Free Press: Jets coach Paul Maurice on the teams overall plan and how their growing pains are likely to continue.
“It would be fairly close to exactly what Kevin (Cheveldayoff, GM) said in our very first conversation,” Maurice said, his team last in the Central at 27-34-5 heading into Thursday’s game. “We’re going to identify what we have, and there’s a very real possibility we’re going to have to get to be a young team to develop that core.”
“(No change), not in terms of a change of the origin plan. We had to develop a core here of players that can drive the team for quite a while. And we’ve got some good young players who have come in here and done that.
“There have been some growing pains to go through that. To be quite honest with you, it’s probably going to continue.”