Stamkos rips team after OT loss
Tampa Bay captain Steven Stamkos did not hold back after an OT loss to Carolina Sunday night that saw the Lightning go 25 minutes and 22 seconds between his first period goal and a shot by him in the third.
"We just continue to be the freewheeling team that thinks we can just come into games and win because we're skilled,” Stamkos told the Tampa Bay Times. “We keep falling back into the same old bad habits that we've been doing, that cost us the season we had last year."
“Unless we change things, it's going to be a really, really, really long year.”
The Lightning scored three goals on 11 shots to start the game against Carolina, but went completely stagnate after that. The Hurricanes dominated possession so much that they missed the net on more shots (21) than the Lightning put on net in the whole game (13). The Canes put a total of 44 shots on net on the way to winning 4-3 in overtime to improve to 3-0-0 to start the season. The Lightning are 1-1-1.
“Our goaltender (Curtis McElhinney) was outstanding,” Stamkos said, “and I feel bad for him that he had that effort and we had the effort we had.”
Tyler Johnson agreed with Stamkos.
“We have skill, but you don't always need to use that skill,” he said. “We try to make those cute plays. We try to make almost Globetrotter plays. In reality, that doesn't win games.”
Source: Tampa Bay Times
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YESTERDAY
JUNE 6, 2026
| ||||
| G | A | PTS | ||
| Mitch Marner | 3 | 1 | 4 | |
| Tomas Hertl | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jordan Staal | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Shea Theodore | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Brayden McNabb | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Taylor Hall | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jordan Martinook | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Andrei Svechnikov | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jackson Blake | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jack Eichel | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Brett Howden | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Seth Jarvis | - | 1 | 1 | |
| William Karlsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Eric Robinson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jaccob Slavin | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Logan Stankoven | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Barbashev | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||