Every year now, the NHL brings in half-a-dozen of the top prospects for the annual entry draft to the Stanley Cup final. Partly, it's a meet-and-greet for the press; partly it's to give the players a chance to see what a Stanley Cup final looks like from the inside and meet some of the players on the participating teams.
Most of the crowd that turned up Monday – five defencemen, plus Steve Stamkos of the Sarnia Sting, the No. 1-rated player in this year's entry draft – seemed most excited about the chance to chat the Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby, who was the top pick in the 2005 draft, not so long ago. Stamkos remembered watching him play in London for Rimouski at the Memorial Cup. Crosby was on his way to the podium for yet another interview session, so they only exchanged a few words – mostly words of encouragement, according to Stamkos, and to enjoy themselves while they could.
Stamkos has already been contacted by Tampa Bay Lightning, the team with the No. 1 pick, and it has become a foregone conclusion that he'll go there. Already, the Lightning is using Stamkos in some of their promotional website material. After the lottery, general manager Jay Feaster sent him an email inviting him to Tampa to talk. That was scheduled to happen this weekend, but they had to cancel because of Monday's appearance at the final. So the new plan is to get together later in the week in Toronto and following that meeting, they may bring him down to Tampa to tour the area.
A more intriguing story is what will happen next in the organization if and when the Oren Koules group completes its purchase of the team from Palace Sports & Entertainment. The assumption is that Koules will then ask Feaster to replace his current coach, John Tortorella, with Barry Melrose, the ESPN analyst and coach of the Wayne Gretzky-led Los Angeles Kings team that went to the 1993 Stanley Cup final. Koules is from Chicago; he played junior hockey in the Western League, for a time in Great Falls and then in Medicine Hat. That's the connection to Melrose - that and the fact that because of his ESPN platform, Melrose may be one of the most recognizable faces in hockey south of the 49th parallel, even if he hasn't coached in more than a decade and the game has changed in so many dramatic ways since he last worked behind an NHL bench. If Tampa shows signs of being a gong show, how will Vincent Lecavalier respond to ongoing attempts to sign him to a what could amount to a lifetime contract extension? He might just ask that negotiations be put off until everything settles out between the old and new ownership groups and he can see how the front-office shapes up.
Stamkos, meanwhile, thought he could make the jump directly to the NHL and welcomed the chance to play with Lecavalier at some point soon. After the Lightning moved Brad Richards at the deadline, it created an opening for a No. 2 centre.
“My mindset now is to play in the NHL next year,” said Stamkos. “It wouldn't be a bad thing if I went back to junior, but I've been working very hard in the gym this summer. Just seeing the guys in the dressing room today, how physically mature they are, I know I've got a lot of hard work ahead, but I think I'm up for the challenge.”
