Nashville Predators' Steven Stamkos in elite company with 600 goals

Anybody who plays games in the National Hockey League, the best league in the world, is part of a select club but then there’s an exclusive sub-set of superstars.

Nashville’s Steven Stamkos, a common man with uncommon talent, is in that rare club, as he hits our town Tuesday to play Edmonton Oilers. He’s just reached 600 goals — one of only 22 to do so. He has one foot in the Hockey Hall of Fame door because everybody who has done scored 600 is in the HHOF but for the other current players Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby.

Stamkos, who won two Cups as Tampa’s captain and scored one of the most inspirational goals in Cup finals history on one good leg and a prayer in the 2020 final here against Dallas Stars in an empty Rogers Place because of COVID, is soon to be 36, coming off a 12-goal December.

He’s his own man.

But he bows to The Man.

Stamkos works out in the summers with Edmonton captain Connor McDavid and several other Oiler players around Toronto, as part of Gary Roberts’ pro group, and besides 97’s singular skill, he has seen McDavid’s sweat equity in the gym.

He has seen the inspiration and the perspiration.

When asked about McDavid, he shakes his head in wonder at his out-of-this-world talent coupled with his off-season work ethic. Stamkos, also big in the gym, has also been plenty good himself with his one 60 goal-season, one 50 and five others 40 or more, since he was the first overall NHL pick in 2008 by the Lightning. Also, his eight, 80-point seasons, five 90-point and 106 in 2021-22.

He’s got 1,218 points in 1,205 games.

But he graciously takes a back seat to McDavid’s will, along with his skill.

“Connor’s drive to excel is off the charts. I see it all summer. It’s almost mind-boggling. There’s no off-switch for him,” said Stamkos. “At times it seems too much, but that’s his personality. He wants to be the best, wants to succeed so badly. All he wants to do is find ways to get better.”

Stamkos has two things McDavid would die for, of course.

Two Cup rings but when he watches McDavid in action, he’s a fan and an opponent.

“Nobody has his combination of speed with the puck. Look at (Nate) MacKinnon. He’s probably next closest guy but it feels like it’s a different style of games, even though both are similar. There’s stylistic differences and changes,” he said.

“I’ve just had the fortune of working out with Connor in the summer and it’s crazy to see the engine he has. He just doesn’t seem to get tired out there. Amazing,” he said.

What keeps Stamkos going, turning 36 Feb. 7? Maybe it’s seeing his contemporaries Crosby, still a marvel at 38, or Ovechkin, still banging in goals with his grey beard at 40. There’s an appreciation for their longevity, for sure. But, there’s something else.

“I don’t know if it’s just a love of the game. We all love it. In my case, it’s just all I know. This is how I was raised by my parents. My dad especially, getting me into the sport. You watch how he works, in sport or in business or life. It’s ingrained in you as a kid,” said Stamkos.

“Then you get to this place (NHL) and you think you’re working hard and you see older guys working even harder. That was me as a rookie (Tampa), seeing Marty St. Louis and what he put into it. You start thinking, ‘I can do more.’ You live and learn,” said Stamkos.

“To get to this level you need a boatload of skill obviously,” he said, “but you need a work ethic. There’s so many guys who had the skill but didn’t make it, right? Maybe they didn’t give it that extra. That’s what every player in this league has done to get here. Sometimes you lose perspective of that, as a fan, or as a player.”

“I think Brad Marchand said it best this year. He said there’s always this voice in your head telling you that you have to do more. The players in this league are so good. I always feel that anxiety every summer…if you take a day off, then somebody else isn’t. I guess it’s all I’ve ever known, giving it the best you can, no matter if things are going good, or terrible. You usually work yourself out of it,” he said.

Stamkos isn’t a teenager anymore. He’s almost twice as old as Macklin Celebrini, but he keeps trucking along because his hockey IQ continues to be very high-end.

“The skill and the pace of the game right now is incredible, but the guys who have success as they get older, they have an IQ, a sense of where to go, regardless of speed. I mean, you maybe have to reinvent your game a bit, but you still lots of guys having success in their late 30s,” he said.

“Yeah, I’ve lost a step since I was 22, but you try your hardest to not have your decrease (in stats and speed) as your age is telling you. It’s all about reading the play in hockey, there’s no set plays. That’s what makes it so great…but yeah the guys with top speed (like McDavid, like MacKinnon), they have an advantage,” he said.

McDavid, McKinnon and Marchand will all be on Canada’s Olympic team in Milan just after Stamkos’ 36th birthday. He would love to be with them, but the team is so deep and his scoring run started so late, in December, just before the 25 players were picked.

“There was no call (from the selection committee). Not anything I was expecting. Unfortunately I never got a chance to play in the Olympics. Crappy luck, with the broken right leg (ruling him out for a roster spot in 2014 in Sochi) and I had two good seasons in Olympic years (2018 and 2022) and the NHL doesn’t go,” he said.

“But I’ll be watching as a Canadian fan, just as I was with 4 Nations,” he said.

Stamkos had an awful start to the Predators’ season with one goal in his first 14 games, and, yes, people started to wonder where his hands had gone. But, he had the 12 goals in December, including four against the Blues. His mitts are back, and while 500 goals has always been the magic milestone, 600 goals is a feat.

No. 600 came New Year’s Eve with a patented one-timer from the left face-off circle in Vegas against the Golden Knights. Next up, Jari Kurri at 601, then Dino Ciccarelli (608) and Bobby Hull (610).

“Anything you do through some of these milestones in your career, it probably hits home more when you’re on the outside, looking in. While you’re in the mix, it’s really hard to comprehend the history of it,” said Stamkos.

“You see the list of names though and it’s pretty surreal. All Hall of Fame guys. Some I grew up idolizing, some my dad idolized. You hear the stories. Yeah, it’s pretty cool but you don’t process how special this is in the middle of a season. You feel the gratitude of the people who helped you get here, then it’s on to the next one (goal).

That’s how sports is,” he said.

Stamkos knows all about Kurri, another great shooter.

“Yup, he’s an Edmonton legend,” he said.

“I have good memories in this building (Rogers Place), ” said Stamkos, who hadn’t played a game in four months because of core muscle surgery and reportedly had some ligament damage in a knee, but came down the wing in Game 3 of the final worked his way past Esa Lindell and then ripped one past Anton Khudobin.

It was Sports Illustrated’s Play of the Year.

“Most memorable goal of my career,” said Stamkos after his heroics.

Two very short shifts in that first period, when his body was a wreck, a goal, the Lightning bench exploding, then the guy with the C on his chest sat for the rest of the game and the series.

“Yeah, a burst of speed…until I didn’t,” he laughed.

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