Stamkos Says Coping With Predators' Struggles Has Been 'difficult'

Stamkos Says Coping With Predators' Struggles Has Been 'difficult'

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BOSTON -- When Steven Stamkos thought about the change he'd be making this season, he anticipated some bumps. He and his family were moving on from the only home they'd ever known, in Tampa, Florida, and setting out for a new life in Nashville, and there were bound to be growing pains.

But Stamkos assumed those bumps would be on the family side, with new schools and new sports and new friends. The hockey, he thought, would be the easy part.

It has been exactly the opposite.

"You know the saying, 'Hope for the best, plan for the worst'?" Stamkos said Tuesday. "We weren't planning for this being the worst. You're hoping that you're a team that can compete for the Stanley Cup. Worst-case scenario, you're a team that's in the mix. And when it's gone this far down, it's difficult."

As the NHL Trade Deadline on Friday at 3 p.M. ET approaches, the Nashville Predators are not adding pieces, not gearing up, not preparing for what they had all anticipated would be a long run in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, maybe even with a chance at the Final and the Stanley Cup.

Instead, this week, the Predators and Stamkos enter the final quarter of the season playing out the string. With a record of 22-32-7, they have 51 points, the third-fewest in the NHL, ahead only of the San Jose Sharks (43) and Chicago Blackhawks (45). They are 16 points out of a playoff spot in the Western Conference.

"As a player you want two things: You want team success and you want to feel like you're contributing towards that success," Stamkos said. "This year hasn't worked out in both degrees. So, it's certainly been difficult, especially with some of the excitement that we had coming into this season for the guys that were here last year to build on the success that they had. Here we are today and [it's] certainly not, I don't think, what anyone thought.

"If we were not in a playoff spot but in the mix, it's different. But when you're in the position we're at, it's a tough pill to swallow and certainly not what any of us expected."

And even after 60 games, they're still not quite sure what got them here.

"I think that's the question we ask ourselves every day, when we're at the rink, when we're together for dinner, it's 'what went wrong' and 'can we try to build on something here?'" Stamkos said. "That's the difficult thing. I think you look back, there were certain areas that haven't clicked or haven't worked as much as we were hoping.

"You put some new guys into a group, so much excitement, a lot of hope, right? You hope that things can work out. And it hasn't."

They were hoping it would result in a team that could improve on last season, which ended with a six-game loss to the Vancouver Canucks in the Western Conference First Round. Instead, the Predators started poorly and simply never recovered, losing their first five games of the season. On Dec. 10, they were 7-16-6 after an eight-game skid (0-5-3).