It was an end of an era in Tampa Bay when longtime Lightning forward and captain Steven Stamkos signed a four-year, $32 million contract (average annual value of $8 million) with the Nashville Predators on July 1, 2024. At the time of his departure, Stamkos was third in playoff points (101) and assists (51), second in goals (50) and fifth in games (128) in Lightning history. He was second in goals, behind only Alex Ovechkin (690) and fourth in points, behind Sidney Crosby (1,302), Ovechkin (1,240) and Patrick Kane (1,212), since joining the NHL.

Stamkos scored his 600th NHL goal in Nashville's 4-2 win at the Vegas Golden Knights on Dec. 31, 2025.

En route to winning the Stanley Cup for the first time, Stamkos was limited to one game and 2:47 of ice time during the Tampa Bay Lightning's run to their second NHL championship in 2020. He made the most of his brief stint, scoring a first-period goal in Game 3 of the Cup Final against the Dallas Stars. Stamkos made his only other playoff appearance after Tampa Bay's 2-0 victory in Game 6, when as captain of the Lightning he accepted the Cup from NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman. The following season, Stamkos helped Tampa Bay repeat as Stanley Cup champions with a five-game victory against the Montreal Canadiens in the best-of-7 Final.

Though his cameo in Game 3 was the only action he saw after Feb. 25 -- he had surgery to repair a core muscle injury, then sustained a lower-body injury before summer training camp opened in July -- Stamkos has emerged as one of the top goal-scorers of his generation since the Lightning selected him at No. 1 in the 2008 NHL Draft.

A two-time Richard Trophy winner as the NHL's leading goal-scorer, Stamkos has reached the 50-goal mark twice and has scored at least 40 goals five times. That total might be higher if not for a broken leg that limited him to 37 games during the 2013-14 season, when he scored 25 goals -- an average of 0.68 per game, a 55-goal pace for a full season. He also had 20 points (nine goals, 11 assists) in 17 games at the start of the 2016-17 season before sustaining a season-ending knee injury, but rebounded with 86 points (27 goals, 59 assists) in 2017-18, then scored 45 goals and finished with an NHL career-high 98 points in 2018-19, helping the Lightning win the Presidents' Trophy and tie the NHL single-season record of 62 victories set by the 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings. Stamkos scored 66 points (29 goals, 37 assists) in 57 regular-season games before the surgery.

Stamkos is one of three players since 1996 (Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals and Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs) to score 60 goals in a season. He scored 60 in 2011-12, when he finished second to Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh Penguins in voting for the Hart Trophy. On April 21, 2022, Stamkos passed Martin St. Louis (953 points) for the most points in Lightning history when he scored at 12:38 of the second period in an 8-1 win against the Maple Leafs at Amalie Arena St. Louis narrated a congratulatory tribute video for Stamkos shortly after the goal. He scored 100 points (106; 42 goals, 64 assists) for the first time in his NHL career in 2021-22 and ended the season with nine consecutive multipoint games to break Vincent Lecavalier's Lightning record of eight set in 2007-08.

Stamkos become the second Lightning player to reach 500 assists (Martin St. Louis, 588), and 11th active to do it with one team, in a 5-4 win against the Dallas Stars on Nov. 15, 2022. He got his 1,000th NHL point with an assist at 7:55 of the second period in a 4-1 win at the Philadelphia Flyers on Dec. 1. On Jan. 18, 2023, Stamkos becane the 47th player in NHL history to score 500 goals and the 23rd to do so with one NHL team in a 5-2 win against the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena. He reached the milestone when he scored at 4:40 of the first period from the top of the crease off a pass from Alex Killorn. He then scored No. 501 at 14:35 after Killorn carried the puck out from behind the net and fed him in front, and completed his 11th NHL hat trick with an empty-net goal at 18:38 of the third for No. 502.

Though Stamkos can score in a variety of ways, he's made his biggest impact with the man-advantage. Stamkos has hit double digits in power-play goals nine times. Many of those goals have come when he has set up near the left circle, taken a pass and fired off his precision one-timer.

On March 6, 2014, he was named the 10th captain in Lightning history, emerging from the tunnel and stepping onto the ice for the first time wearing the "C" in his first game back after sustaining a fractured leg on Nov. 11, 2013.

Stamkos could have become a free agent in the summer of 2016, but opted to stay with the Lightning, signing an eight-year contract. He scored his 400th NHL goal against the Winnipeg Jets on Nov. 16, 2019, becoming the second-fastest active player (behind Ovechkin) to reach the milestone and the first player to score his 400th NHL goal with the Lightning.

A native of Markham, Ontario, Stamkos has been the first player picked in both the Ontario Hockey League draft (by Sarnia in 2006) and the NHL Draft; this puts him in an elite group that includes Eric Lindros, John Tavares and Aaron Ekblad.