Steven Stamkos will not be supplanted as the face of the Tampa Bay Lightning anytime soon.
So believes Dave Andreychuk, the club's vice president of corporate and community affairs, who said as much on Sportsnet's Hockey Central on Wednesday.
"I still believe that (general manager) Steve Yzerman is trying whatever he can do to sign Steven Stamkos, and I believe it will happen," Andreychuk said.
"Even with all this going on, I think it will happen. He's been around the team, he's obviously on the trip here to New York. He's been very positive with the guys, so he's doing what he can do as the captain of this team."
"All this" refers to a blood clot and subsequent surgery that has kept Stamkos off the ice during the playoffs. Several players have stepped up in his absence, most notably Nikita Kucherov, who leads the postseason with seven goals.
The Russian's performance has led some to believe the Lightning would be fine without Stamkos, taking that cap savings and spreading it elsewhere.
Andreychuk, who won a Stanley Cup with the Lightning in 2004, disagrees, fully believing it's Stamkos that the team must continue to be built around.
From Hockey Central:
(Kucherov) is obviously a great player. I liked him at the start of the year saying, you know - he had 20-something goals last year - he says, "That's not good enough. I need to be a 40-goal scorer, a 30-goal scorer." So he's got that kind of attitude. ...
You need 25 guys on your roster to win a Stanley Cup. You don't win with a few superstars ... Yes, (Kucherov) is a good player. He's a very good player. But you need good players around him. And putting (Stamkos) in that mix, and (Tyler) Johnson in that mix, and (Ondrej) Palat in the mix and (Alex) Killorn and all the talent that we have, you have to put those all together.
You can't just break things up (and) hope that it's going to be successful.
Still, Stamkos will be an unrestricted free agent and command top dollar on the open market, and Kucherov, who need a new deal this summer as a restricted free agent, will certainly not come cheap.
"(Yzerman) has the cap to spend to and he's going to try to get everybody under that," Andreychuk said, admitting it won't be an easy task.
Whether it can be achieved, and whether Stamkos ultimately decides to remains in Tampa Bay, remains to be seen.
For the moment, Kucherov is doing his best to make sure people know the Lightning shine brighter than one player.
