TAMPA, FLA. — Steven Stamkos admits it.
Somewhere deep down inside, each and every member of the Tampa Bay Lightning was a bit irked at the actions of Jonathan Drouin earlier this season.
OK, “irked” isn’t quite the word Stamkos used to describe what he and his teammates felt when the young forward decided to request a trade, then deserted the team’s American Hockey League affiliate for five weeks.
We’ll let you scan the comments of the Lightning captain and connect the dots for yourself.
“I think in the back of everyone’s mind, I’m sure you’re not human if you’re not a little pissed off at him for (what happened),” Stamkos said the other day. “And he understands that. I think that’s the first step that made the transition easy was he understood he might have not been acting in the best interest of the team and himself. But he manned up.
“That took a lot to say, ‘You know what, maybe I made a mistake. I want to get a chance to come back and play in the minors.’ Probably not ever thinking he would get a call back, but just giving himself a chance.”
After returning to Syracuse to play, that “chance” came on April 4 when Stamkos underwent surgery to remove blood clots. The domino effect of Stamkos’ ailment saw the Lightning recall Drouin.
Six weeks later, Stamkos and his teammates are seeing a different Jonathan Drouin, and not just because the one-time peach fuzz on his face has morphed into the dark stubble of infant playoff facial hair.
With the best-of-seven Eastern Conference final knotted at a game apiece heading into Game 3 Wednesday at the Amalie Arena in Tampa, Drouin has scored in each of the first two games in Pittsburgh to run his post-season point total to 11 in 12 games. All the while, he has filled an offensive void left by Stamkos, who still hopes to return to action sometime in this matchup, with an appearance in one of the two upcoming games in Tampa a best-case scenario, as unlikely as it might be.
When Drouin, the third overall pick in the 2013 NHL draft, was rethinking his choice to leave Syracuse, one of the people he reached out to for an opinion was Stamkos.
“I’d talked to him before,” Stamkos said. “He’d reached out to certain guys on the team and we’d given him our opinions. Told him to just go back, work hard, you never know. Injuries happen, whatever. He goes back, he works his ass off for those few months, however long it was, he comes back and it’s paying off for us now.”
Showing a maturity that arguably wasn’t there just months ago, Drouin doesn’t want to talk about his stats. Or about the fact that, a year ago at this time, he was getting only about six minutes of ice time per game from coach Jon Cooper during Tampa’s run to the Stanley Cup final.
That all behind him, just like his self-imposed departure from Syracuse.
Right now, the only thing that matters is making a run at the Cup again. And that’s why, even though the Lightning came home having won a game in Pittsburgh, he’s still thirsting for more.
“Overall, it’s satisfying to split on the road, but it’s still hard for us,” he said. “We could have had two games in their building.”
As for all that other baggage …
“It’s past — I’ve said that many times now,” Drouin said. “I’m not even thinking about it anymore. It’s all about playing hockey and moving forward.”
That’s the same attitude being adopted by Cooper, who has let bygones by bygones and is now giving Drouin about 19 minutes per game.
“He’s a really talented player,” Cooper said. “There’s a reason he was drafted where he was and came with all the press clippings. There’s that growing stage, that step, of going from junior to pro. Actually, it hasn’t even taken him that long to learn the process.
“The only thing about (Drouin) is he just had a camera on him the whole time, whereas most players don’t. So I think every step he took was scrutinized.”
Maybe, just maybe, Stamkos said, that’s exactly the type of adversity — much of it brought on himself — will be advantageous to the 21-year-old Drouin in the long run.
“One day at the end of his career he might look back and say it was the best worst decision he ever made because you see what he’s learned from that experience,” Stamkos said. “You see it in the games.
“It’s a treat to watch.”