{"id":282320,"date":"2025-11-13T18:50:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T18:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/282320\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T18:50:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T18:50:08","slug":"stamkos-stays-positive-for-his-kids-predators-despite-frustrations-entering-global-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/282320\/","title":{"rendered":"Stamkos stays positive for his kids, Predators despite frustrations entering Global Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been a season of frustration for many on the Predators, so much so that it spilled over in a recent postgame interview by Ryan O’Reilly<\/a>, who said after a game last week that \u201cI\u2019ve had one good year in my career,\u201d an interview that he later said he regretted, calling it \u201cwhiny.\u201d<\/p>\n

But O\u2019Reilly has seen Stamkos handle everything that has happened, everything he has been dealt, as well as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s done an incredible job just being around the room, the leader that he is,\u201d O\u2019Reilly said. \u201cAlways saying the right thing and doing it. It feels like he\u2019s not affected by anything and that\u2019s tough to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stamkos, in some ways, has practiced for this.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time the forward has dealt with adversity. Stamkos has fought through multiple health challenges, from the broken leg that cost him his chance at the 2014 Sochi Olympics to the blood clot and lateral meniscus tear in 2016 to the abdominal core muscle injury in 2020, among others.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing back from some of those injuries, I\u2019m sure there\u2019s times where certainly other people thought that you were never going to get back to a certain level or you start to doubt that a little bit just based on your physical limitations, but I feel like I\u2019ve tried to adapt to that,\u201d Stamkos said. \u201cAnd sometimes you just have to look yourself in the mirror and that\u2019s what I\u2019ve tried to do is just continue to grind and hope it gets better.\u201d<\/p>\n

To Stamkos, each new day is a chance to get momentum, to get confidence, to get back to being himself.<\/p>\n

He has no interest in shutting down, in playing the \u201cpoor me card,\u201d instead trying to take the disappointment and shelve it, approaching each game as a chance to do better and be better, to find a way out of a funk that has leveled him for the past year-plus.<\/p>\n

He is finding the mindset that works for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just comes with age and experience and perspective, I think,\u201d he said. \u201cListen, I\u2019ve been around this game a long time and seen the ultimate highs and some really bad lows. Perspective matters, right? You want to go out there and understand the situation that we\u2019re in and getting a chance to play in the best League in the world, you find some other motivations too sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where those kids come in.<\/p>\n

And his teammates, who have seen so many positives.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been a great, great person for us, he\u2019s been great on the ice, great off the ice,\u201d forward Filip Forsberg<\/a> said. \u201cI think he\u2019s getting more and more comfortable. Being in a place for that long and then having to change, I can only imagine what it would be like. I think he handled it really well despite all the adversity we were going through last year. And I think this year he looks more comfortable, he\u2019s taking more of a leadership role.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s some extra salt in the wound this season, though, in the form of the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. Stamkos, who might otherwise have been a fixture for Canada during his career, broke his tibia on Nov. 11, 2013, getting tied up with defenseman Dougie Hamilton<\/a> and crashing into a goal post in a game in Boston. It cost him that Olympics. The NHL hadn\u2019t allowed players to go back until this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, it\u2019s something I wish I would have had the opportunity to do, no doubt,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s just one of those things that probably just wasn\u2019t meant to be. \u2026 You look at it, you could have had the chance to play in three and you play in zero. That\u2019s just the way it goes.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome guys play 20 years, they don\u2019t get a chance to be in a Final, so I\u2019ve been fortunate enough to play in four of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the 10,000-foot view of his career, with Stamkos on the brink of 1,200 games (1,182) and 1,200 points (1,194), with two Stanley Cup rings, two wins of the Maurice \u201cRocket\u201d Richard Trophy, a captaincy, four trips to the Final, and a future as a Hall of Famer.<\/p>\n

The now, though? That\u2019s harder to see his way through.<\/p>\n

It is not what he wanted it to be. But, for Stamkos, tomorrow is another day, another game, another chance to be the person he wants his children to become.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think obviously things haven\u2019t gone as good as we wanted [them] to,\u201d Stamkos said. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy what a difference a year can make in terms of the expectations of our group with where we were last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, honestly, you\u2019d drive yourself absolutely insane if you keep dwelling on that. \u2026 At this point, there\u2019s no point in looking back. You have to look forward and figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been a season of frustration for many on the Predators, so much so that it spilled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-282320","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}