Steven Stamkos<\/a> said he isn\u2019t concerned about his future with the Predators, even if they are returning from the Olympic break outside the Stanley Cup Playoff picture.<\/p>\nNashville (26-24-7) is four points behind the Anaheim Ducks for the second wild card in the Western Conference and could be sellers at the trade deadline.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt comes with the territory of being a team on the bubble,\u201d Stamkos told The Athletic. \u201cAt the end of the day, I\u2019m not too worried about it. I have a full no-move clause, so I get to make a decision whenever it comes down to that. But I haven\u2019t had any conversations about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
After starting the season with five points (four goals, one assist) in his first 22 games, Stamkos has 39 points (24 goals, 15 assists) in the past 24. He is signed for two more seasons after this one on the four-year, $32 million contract ($8 million average annual value) he signed July 1, 2024.<\/p>\n
The Predators were last in the NHL on Dec. 1 with eight wins in 25 games (8-13-4), but have gained ground in the standings with Stamkos\u2019 help.<\/p>\n
Asked by The Athletic if he wants to stay in Nashville, Stamkos said, \u201cYou want to win. We\u2019re in a position where — that\u2019s why I signed here — was to play competitive hockey, right? It hasn\u2019t happened yet, but we\u2019re in a position where we are playing meaningful games. We\u2019ll see what happens, but that\u2019s the goal for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Predators host the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nashville Predators Steven Stamkos said he isn\u2019t concerned about his future with the Predators, even if they are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-497495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}