(USA TODAY) Tampa Bay Lightning captain Steven Stamkos is 25 and yet he has the wisdom of an old man. He's a superstar who has endured enough setbacks in his career to appreciate the importance of seizing every moment.
"(Lightning assistant coach) Rick Bowness has been in the playoffs for 40 years as a player and coach and this is only his third time in the Final and he's never had a chance to win," Stamkos said. "That (adds) a lot of perspective for our group."
Wednesday's Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Lightning and Chicago Blackhawks (8 p.m. ET, NBC) marks the first opportunity Stamkos has had to perform on a big stage.
In 2010, he was too young to make Canada's gold medal-winning Olympic team and in 2014 he was sidelined with a broken leg when the Canadians won the gold again in Sochi, Russia.
"I'm not going to lie," Stamkos said. "It was tough … (knowing) you could have been in Sochi getting the gold medal for your country."
It took him a year to fully recover from that injury. He still has a 16-inch titanium rod in his leg as a daily reminder of missing out on that gold medal.
"You wake up some days and it still hurts a little but that's going to happen a little bit," Stamkos said. "The mental part was the hardest. Taking the puck hard to the net ... it goes through your head. You have to overcome that."
It's possible, even likely, that Stamkos will play 10-15 more NHL seasons, but there is a sense of urgency in him about taking advantage of this championship opportunity.
"I want this so bad," Stamkos said. "Everyone who knows me knows that. And I will do whatever it takes."
It's part of Stamkos' mental make-up to want to be the best. "I'm competitive at everything I do," Stamkos said, "even running up the stairs with my sister as a kid. That was a race. I was competitive. I want to win at everything I do. At the gym, it's who can lift the most weight, who can run the fastest around the track. Softball, golf, everything I do, I want to win."
He is losing sleep over this Stanley Cup quest. His pre-game nap routine has been disrupted. His mind is too busy to allow him to sleep soundly.
"These games are so intense and you have so much nervous energy coming in," Stamkos said. "You almost wish you could wake up, have breakfast and go play so you wouldn't have to think about it all day… I don't think you can have a good nap on the day of a Game 7 or get to the Final."
Stamkos has scored 276 goals in 492 regular-season games. That's an average of 46 goals every 82 games. His goal scoring reputation is well established. Among active players, only Alexander Ovechkin can be considered a more prolific goal scorer than Stamkos.
But his overall game and his leadership have been either underrated or underpublicized.
Deservedly, Chicago's Jonathan Toews receives considerable attention for being the perfect captain. But Stamkos commands the same respect in Tampa Bay's dressing room that Toews has in Chicago.
"He has accepted different roles with the team," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "Ultimately, that is the sacrifice. You're saying, 'Okay, I'll do this, this and this for our team to win.' He never complained about this. That's what makes him a great leader."
Stamkos didn't score in the first eight games of the playoffs, but he understood that there were other contributions he could make other than score. Media criticism centered on his lack of offensive production, but that was not how his coach viewed the situation.
"Nobody was talking about how he was playing defensively or how he was winning faceoffs," Cooper recalled.
Today, Stamkos has 17 points in the Lightning's 20 playoff games. But his teammates don't measure him on that point total.
"It's not only his goal scoring, but his physicality and leadership have shown through," Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman said.
In some respects, Stamkos has evolved as a star like his boss Steve Yzerman did during his playing career. Yzerman, now Tampa Bay's general manager, began his career with the Detroit Red Wings as an offensive force and then transformed himself into a more complete player. While it hasn't been as pronounced as the Yzerman change, Stamkos had gone through the same evolution.
Yzerman had advice for Stamkos before the playoffs began.
"The message was to stay even keeled and be prepared for anything," Stamkos recalled. "To see our growth has been remarkable. In the first game of the playoffs, we had 50 shots and lost. That's exactly what (Yzerman) meant. I don't know if he knew something, but we talked about it that morning. We were down 3-2 in that series and found a way to win."
The Lightning now boasted a collection of skilled, dangerous forwards to ignite their offensive fireworks. Tyler Johnson and Nikita Kucherov have more points than Stamkos, and Ondrej Palat is right behind him.
But everyone on the Lightning understands that Stamkos remains the offensive fire-starter on this team, even if he now places heavier emphasis on other aspects of his game.
"He takes the team on his back and takes control – that's what good leaders do," saidDave Andreychuk who was captain of the 2004 Tampa Bay team that won a Stanley Cup.
Unfair or not, the NHL community doesn't seem to give maximum credit to any star until he wins the Stanley Cup. This is Stamkos' first chance to earn the most important merit badge.
"You obviously want to be known as a winner," Stamkos said. "Any time you look at the great players in this sport, they're going to tell you the same thing: They want to win. I will do whatever it takes to win because that's how I feel. Not because of what (the media) will think of me but because I want to win."
Gallery: Best of the Stanley Cup playoffs: Conference Finals
