NASHVILLE — Steven Stamkos was red-faced and smiling, wearing a yellow Nashville Predators sweatshirt, minutes after he stepped off the ice following his first practice with his brand new team, just after he walked past a banner in the arena that reads: “Welcome to Smashville.”
“I felt like a young kid again, getting out there and just feeling out your surroundings,” Stamkos said from beneath the brim of a Predators ballcap, not long after he wore Nashville’s yellow and blue on the ice for the first time. “It’s always exciting to get on the ice, first day of camp. Great pace. You can tell the guys had really good summers.”
None of them had a summer quite like Stamkos did, though. And now we’ve officially ‘Seen Stamkos’ as a Nashville Predator.
On Thursday morning at the Ford Ice Center, the 34-year-old former career member of the Tampa Bay Lightning made his on-ice debut for the team he signed a four-year deal with on July 1 after the Lightning let their captain walk in free agency, signalling a summer of change for a player who’s known just one organization since he turned pro at 18.
“It’s a great group of guys, so that makes it easier,” Stamkos said of his fresh start, which comes after 16 years with the Lightning, 10 seasons as the team’s captain, two of them ending with him hoisting the Stanley Cup over his head.
“I think it certainly changes systematically, just trying to figure out some things,” Stamkos added of the learning curve with a new team. “Obviously as we all know I’ve been in one place my whole career, so you’re pretty comfortable and confident in what you’re doing on the ice, it just comes second nature. There’s some tweaks to some system things that aren’t just going to happen overnight.”
Stamkos spent part of his first skate in Nashville on the wing on a line with Tommy Novak and fellow new Predators forward Jonathan Marchessault. Stamkos, Marchessault and defender Brady Skjej all signed with this club the day free agency opened, a day captain Roman Josi and forward Ryan O’Reilly both likened to “Christmas.”
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“It’s pretty cool to see those guys in Preds shirts,” Josi said.
“On paper, playing fantasy hockey, we look like a better team,” added Predators General Manager Barry Trotz, maker of those big off-season moves. “As I told the players, it’s fantasy hockey until we become a good team.”
The Predators haven’t advanced past the first round of the playoffs since 2017-18, and Trotz said the big splash in the off-season addressed needs at the back end and in the goal-scoring and special teams departments, as well as adding “serial winners” like Stamkos, who scored 40 goals for the sixth time in his career last season.
“We did something that is pretty hard to do in this league,” Trotz said, of the many off-season moves. “We’ll see if we can become a threat.”
It’s awfully early still, but Stamkos likes what he sees so far.
“The expectations are probably a little higher this year with the group that we have,” he said. “But we know that just because it looks good on paper, it doesn’t mean much — you have to go out and put in the work. And I thought today was a good start.” He added Thursday was “probably one of the fastest day ones of camp, pace-wise, I’ve had in a long time.”
Stamkos and his wife and three young kids made the move to Nashville in August, and have been in the city about a month now.
“To be honest, it’s gone a lot better than what I envisioned,” he said, of settling into Nashville. He’s had the help of long-time buddy Luke Schenn, who’s been helping the Stamkos family get to know the city. Schenn and Stamkos won a pair of Cups together in Tampa, and it’s Schenn who told Stamkos about what to expect when it came to living and playing here if he did decide to sign in Nashville.
“As far as Stammer, I mean, it’s not selling him to come here, I just gave him the facts,” Schenn said, adding the organization was fortunate Stamkos made the decision he did.
“I like him in yellow,” Schenn said, with a grin.
