Announced as a member of the NHL’s Quarter-Century team Friday, Steven Stamkos hopes next season more closely resembles the majority of his past years.

The Predators forward was one of 25 players voted by fans onto the league’s Quarter-Century team.

The 13 who had been announced as of Friday also included defenseman Zdeno Chara; forward Jarome Iginla; defenseman Nick Lidstrom; forward Joe Sakic; forward Teemu Selanne; forward Joe Thornton; forward Patrice Bergeron; forward Sidney Crosby; forward Pavel Datsyuk; forward Patrick Kane; forward Evgeni Malkin; and forward Alex Ovechkin.

Stamkos’ spot on the team is a testament to both his productivity (566 goals, 594 assists, 1,160 points in 1,120 games) and his accomplishments (two Stanley Cups, two Maurice Richard trophies for leading the league in goals, the Messier Award for leadership).

But the 35-year-old Stamkos, who arrived in Nashville last season after playing 16 years for Tampa Bay, suffered through an abnormal season — for him — in 2024-25.

He missed the playoffs for just the fourth time in his career, played on a team with a losing record for the first time since 2012-13, and posted his lowest points total (53) in a full season since Stamkos was a rookie in 2008-09.

One reason Stamkos believes the Predators will be better next season is that the organization still likely feels it’s in more of a win-now mode — as opposed to a rebuild — based on the ages of core veterans like himself, Jonathan Marchessault (34 years old), Ryan O’Reilly (34), Roman Josi (34), Brady Skjei (31) and Filip Forsberg (30).

“As a guy who signed on for as long as we did last summer … we came here to be on a competitive team,” Stamkos said.

“When you look at some of the ages of the players we have here, I think we’re more on the, ‘We need to find a way to make this work,’ than ‘Let’s start all over again.’ … [Predators GM Barry Trotz] has already talked about what his plans are in free agency and the trade market. So it will be an exciting offseason to see what transpires.”

Stamkos expects to see some changes in coach Andrew Brunette’s system as well, after the Predators finished 31st in the league in scoring and 27th in goals allowed last season.

“I mean, was [the system] new for a lot of us? Absolutely,” Stamkos said. “[Are] there things that can be tweaked to help out the group we have now? That’s the challenge, is every year there’s different players on teams. You have to see what works, what doesn’t work and then kind of revolve around that.

“That takes some time. That takes some thought. Is there one thing that’s glaring that needs to be changed? I’m not sure there is. But there certainly can be tweaks and that’s why you have those relationships with the leadership group and the coaches.”

Stamkos hopes he will be a better player himself in 2025-26 as well.

He said he felt the weight of heavy expectations last season, as a veteran star brought in to a team that was expected by most to make a run in the playoffs.

“When you don’t meet those expectations, and you’re one of the guys that’s supposed to help, you wear that,” Stamkos said. “And it wore on me this year for sure. I think I learned more in that aspect than anything on the ice.

“I know what my strengths, my weaknesses, my capabilities, my limitations [are as a player]. That’s not going to change. You want to ride that as long as possible, the good things. But off the ice, I think I learned a lot about how to deal with these situations … I wasn’t expecting, and hopefully can use that as some motivation so that it won’t happen again.”