Steven Stamkos is, in case you somehow weren’t aware, one of the best goal-scorers anywhere in the hockey world today. What he means to the Tampa Bay Lightning franchise and to Team Canada at the Olympics in Sochi can’t be overstated. He’s been out for ten weeks now with that gruesome broken tibia, but there were a couple encouraging signs yesterday that the 23-year-old is nearing a return to game action.
Stamkos has been skating with the team at practice, albeit in a red, no-contact jersey, and he’s been taking part in drills to test the strength of his leg. That in itself is an incredible recovery time for any athlete, even for one so obsessed with fitness as Stamkos.
He had another X-ray on Thursday, and the results that came in yesterday afternoon were reported to be quite encouraging. The expectation now is that Stamkos will increase his work load and really put some pressure on that leg to see if it can handle the rigors it will have to endure through the Olympics and the rest of the season.
However it wasn’t until last night when the talk really got ramped up. Richard Panik, who admittedly hasn’t been having a good season in Tampa with only two goals in 39 games, was sent down to Syracuse in the AHL.
While the Lightning are still carrying an extra forward, this essentially makes room for Stamkos when he comes off the IR. While that isn’t likely to be tonight or tomorrow, it seems a good bet that Stamkos could be back in the lineup for Tampa’s last game before the Olympic break on February 8th against Detroit, if not sooner.
The Lightning are in a pretty good place right now and a number of young players, such as Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat and Alex Killorn to name just a few of many, have helped keep the team afloat without Stamkos. In fact, you could say they are flourishing, holding the third best winning percentage in the Eastern Conference, and likely a playoff berth to come.
Still, that isn’t to say the impact of Stamkos returning to the lineup wouldn’t be massive. Through the season’s first 17 games Stamkos was on a tear, potting 14 goals and 23 points. There’s still a very real possibility that he could hit 30 goals this year, and impressive total for essentially half a season’s work. Stamkos is a game-breaker, and one the Lightning will surely need at points down the stretch and heading into the playoffs.
For a certain demographic, Stamkos’ return means something else: it could mean the difference between a Gold medal or utter failure at the Olympics (let’s face it, anything less than Gold is an impossible pill to swallow for Canadian hockey fans). There is some concern about how effective Stamkos can be at the tournament with so little time to get his legs under him (both literally and figuratively), but the thought of him playing with the likes of Sidney Crosby or John Tavares has many in Canada salivating.
Any way you break it down, Steven Stamkos back in the NHL is fantastic news for his team, his country, and for fans around the league. Personally, few things bother me more than when a player, especially one of his caliber, is taken out of game action. Seeing Stamkos back and terrorizing opposing goaltenders again is going to be a wonderful thing.
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