Will Tampa Bay's captain Stamkos stay put? Or will he take his goal-scoring talents elsewhere? Here's what NHL 24 is predicting
While it isn’t confirmed if Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos will hit the open market on July 1, we wanted to see what would happen with the Lightning captain by simulating the free agency period in NHL 24.
Stamkos signed an eight-year, $68 million contract extension back on Jun. 29, 2016. He and the Lightning waited until the last few days before free agency opened to get an extension signed. And the very same could transpire in real life here in 2024.
Now, based on our simulation(s), NHL 24 appears confident that a deal will get done. We ran three simulations as the GM for another NHL team, and in those simulations, Stamkos re-signed with Tampa Bay.
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All three extensions came as one-year deals, but the cap hit(s) he signed seem accurate as to what he could get on his new deal in real life.
Stamkos, 34, is getting up there in age, but he just recorded his seventh 40-goal season and added another five goals in five playoff games. It doesn’t seem like the two-time Stanley Cup champ is slowing down just yet.
However, if Stamkos is available on Day 1 of free agency, he will have a long list of teams bidding for his services. NHL 24 thinks differently though.
Just for fun, we did a simulation where we acted as the Lightning GM and didn’t re-sign the captain. Stamkos hit the open market and was asking for $8.4 million annually on a two-year deal. After going the entire month of July without a single team approaching him, he lowered his asking price to $7.275 million.
Once the price lowered, three teams swooped in with contract offers. Buffalo, Utah and the Islanders were the three teams in the running to sign Stamkos. The 34-year-old decided to stay within the Atlantic Division and sign with the Sabres on a one-year deal worth $7.345 million.
What an upgrade Stamkos would be from recently bought-out winger Jeff Skinner. Buffalo would be rolling into the 2024-25 season with a forward core of Tage Thompson, Steven Stamkos, Alex Tuch, and Dylan Cozens. That would certainly increase their chances of finally getting back into the playoffs.
For more fun NHL 24 free agency simulations, bookmark The Hockey News Gaming Site.