Steven Stamkos Remains In Limbo
Sure, the thought of Steven Stamkos in orange and black is enough to incite mass hysteria in Philadelphia, but nothing appears imminent.
According to a report from the Daily News, the Flyers are strongly considering putting in an offer sheet for the restricted free agent to-be, but that hasn’t happened yet. The rumored offer would be for 12 years and $115 will a full no movement clause.
“I have nothing official from the Flyers,” one of Stamkos’ agents, Don Meehan, told Philly Sports Daily Wednesday morning.
That’s not to say it won’t happen, but even if they did, plenty would have to happen before the Flyers announced Stamkos as one of their own. If they did make an offer, the Lightning would have seven days to match it. They have right of first refusal for their star, but they hope it doesn’t come to that.
“We are committed to get Stamkos signed,” Tampa Bay Lightning GM Steve Yzerman said in a statement.
But the possibility that the Lightning can’t re-sign the 21-year-old star who scored 91 points last season remains. Meehan wouldn’t say how many teams he expects to get offer sheets from, but the act of putting the sheet out there comes at no penalty. What team wouldn’t be interested in having No. 91 on their team?
If the Flyers are serious about acquiring Stamkos, they will have to find a way of handcuffing the Lightning. They could do that by offering a contract so big that the Lightning can’t possibly match it. It seems like an insurmountable task for a team that just signed Ilya Bryzgalov to a nine-year deal with a $5.6 million cap hit, but it’s actually a little easier to fit him than one might think.
It wouldn’t quite take breathtaking moves that happened on Thursday to fit the bona fide superstar. If the Flyers subtracted the contracts of Kris Versteeg and Sergei Bobrovsky — and didn’t re-sign Ville Leino — they could fit Stamkos with a near-max $10 million cap hit.
Check out the following from the capgeek.com cap calculator:
FORWARDS
Scott Hartnell ($4.200m) / Daniel Briere ($6.500m) / Steven Stamkos ($10.000m)
Jakub Voracek ($1.500m) / Claude Giroux ($3.750m) / James Van Riemsdyk ($1.654m)
Andreas Nodl ($0.845m) / Brayden Schenn ($3.110m) / Wayne Simmonds ($1.000m)
Tom Sestito ($0.550m) / Blair Betts ($0.700m) / Jody Shelley ($1.100m)
DEFENSEMEN
Kimmo Timonen ($6.333m) / Chris Pronger ($4.921m)
Andrej Meszaros ($4.000m) / Matt Carle ($3.437m)
Braydon Coburn ($3.200m) / Oskars Bartulis ($0.600m)
GOALTENDERS
Ilya Bryzgalov ($5.666m) / Brian Boucher ($0.850m)
Again, this is enough to incite riots in Flyerdom at the potential of having Stamkos around, but it’s still not likely to happen.
A report from TSN says that the Lightning will match any offer another team puts forward. If that’s true, the entire conversation about Stamkos being anywhere but Tampa is moot.
If the Flyers have taught us anything since last Thursday, it’s that anything is possible. However, even if the team does put in an offer sheet, the possibility of Steven Stamkos wearing orange and black remains a small one.
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