NHL Rumors: Red Wings interested in Steven Stamkos?

The Red Wings are reportedly expected to make a serious run at signing Steven Stamkos if he doesn’t re-sign with the Lightning.

One of the teams to watch during the 2016 NHL offseason is the Detroit Red Wings. They will have to scramble and try to replace the incomparable Pavel Datsyuk if he leaves the NHL to go to the KHL as expected. Detroit is aggressively trying to trade Datsyuk’s contract. Why? Because they are reportedly very interested in pursuing Tampa Bay Lightning captain Steven Stamkos if he hits free agency.

Pursing Stamkos makes sense for Detroit. They need to get better quickly and they need to replace Datsyuk’s production. Stamkos is one of the very few players in the NHL who could not only replace Datsyuk but actually be an upgrade over him as well. Since entering the league, only Alex Ovechkin has more goals than Stamkos. Anytime you are second to Ovechkin in goal scoring, you’re doing pretty well.

There are, however, some concerns with Stamkos. The biggest one is his long-term health. He missed all but one playoff game with blood clots. While Stamkos did play in Game 7 against the Penguins, even if his blood clots are fine for the time being, that’s something that could easily haunt him in the future. Penguins forward Pascal Dupuis had blood clots and eventually had to retire because of them.

Stamkos had 36 goals and 28 assists for 64 points in 77 games during the 2015-16 season. He has 562 points in 569 career games.

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