- Video: Glenn Healy on the Lightning’s offer to Steven Stamkos.
- Erik Erlendsson of the Tampa Bay Tribune: Steven Stamkos on Sportsnet reports that the Lightning offered him $8.5 million.
“That’s a little surprising … those guys are good,’’ Stamkos said of the information being reported. “But some things come out, some things are true, some things are not.”
Stamkos wouldn’t confirm nor deny the report.
“Whether it was true or not, there has been a lot said — things that haven’t been true, and people have said things that are true,” said Stamkos, 25, who is scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent after this season. “And you have to make a story when things are not going on. So, all the stuff that we have talked about will stay internal and we’ll go from there.’’
- Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times: Steven Stamkos on Sportsnet’s report.
“I’m not going to comment on that,” Stamkos said Sunday at the Lightning’s family carnival at Amalie Arena. “We haven’t talked about that stuff in the media all season long, and I don’t know how they get a hold of stuff like that. All the things that we’ve talked about, it’s staying internally, and it’ll continue to be that way.”
- Chris Nichols of Today’s Slapshot: Elliotte Friedman on Sportsnet 960 on Steven Stamkos.
“Well, we also mentioned about Stamkos and the fact that they made their first offer to him. I should say I believe it’s their first offer. Nobody really knows exactly what’s happening here. It’s an AAV of 8.5. I don’t think anybody expected to get that done, but at least now we seem to have some kind of a starting point.
“Now, I should clarify one thing, and that’s that it’s been reported that I mentioned eight years. I’m not sure about that. I’m assuming that was an option. But I think they also gave Stamkos the option of, ‘Do you want to take a shorter term, so you can get another big contract out of this.’ So I think there’s a lot of negotiating going on there.
“Basically to me, this is Tampa putting a stake in the ground and saying, ‘Okay. Now we’ve got a starting point. Where do we want to go from here. We’ll see.’
- Elliotte Friedman: Don’t read too much into the numbers that the Lightning offered Steven Stamkos. It’s the starting point and it’s likely far from their final offer.