Sometimes you want to come up with an idea that will be more of a shock to the system than anything and seeing Steven Stamkos in a Florida Panthers uniform would more than qualify, but if you think about it hard enough, it’s the kind of idea that just makes sense.
The Panthers’ injuries to Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov help inspire this idea, of course, and although Tkachuk will ideally be back before the Olympics, Barkov’s absence will be a bit longer than that. Even though they’ve played without those two all year, it hasn’t exactly sunk their season. Far from it, in fact, which makes the idea of adding Stamkos something out of the “evil genius” realm.
After all, this is the same team that added team captains from division rivals the past two years at the deadline that helped them win the Stanley Cup (Kyle Okposo, Brad Marchand) and it would only be natural if they added Stamkos, the former captain of their most bitter rival, to make a run at a three-peat.
Yeah, it doesn’t really work out well when it comes to the money and finding a way to balance it out would be really difficult, but sometimes you want to see the world burn if even for a second.