At the start of his 19th NHL season, Stamkos continues to find a way

Anyone hoping to see the NHL’s first overall pick put on a show Tuesday night in Toronto certainly got value for their money.

The only question was: which top pick was it?

Gavin McKenna, the 2026 first overall pick, finally got on the board for the Maple Leafs, scoring his first NHL goal at the 14:31 mark of the second period. That was just minutes after he’d earned his first NHL point, assisting on a goal from 2009 first overall selection John Tavares. And it would be remiss to fail to mention Toronto captain Auston Matthews, with the 2016 first choice chipping in with three assists before scoring the overtime winner, as the Maple Leafs snapped a two-game skid with a 5-4 decision over the visiting Nashville Predators.

But it was 2008 first pick Steven Stamkos who led the way among the four in the sharpshooter stakes, as the Markham, Ont., native scored twice in his return to the NHL rink closest to his childhood home.

Stamkos is now wearing a Predators jersey instead of the Tampa Bay Lightning one that he wore with distinction for the first 16 years of his career, captaining the Bolts to back-to-back Stanley Cups.

Hiller plays the waiting game with Tavares, Nylander and McKenna line

But his eye for goals is as unerring and deadly as ever. The Predators winger continued to pad his Hall of Fame résumé on Tuesday night, putting the visitors on the board in the first period with a power-play goal. It was his second of the season and 626th of his career, lifting him past Joe Sakic and Jarome Iginla – both enshrined in the Hall – into sole possession of 17th in the National Hockey League’s career goal list.

Four months before his 37th birthday, Stamkos knows he can’t go on forever. And Monday’s announcement that Alexander Ovechkin would be calling time on his own NHL career after this season has forced him to focus on his own NHL mortality.

“You do start to think about that,” he said. “But for me, as long as my body’s feeling good I want to keep playing ‚so that’s a conversation with your family that you have at that point but certainly when you see a lot more guys that I grew up with retired or retiring it starts to sink in a little bit.”

With a pair of Rocket Richard Trophies on his mantle as the NHL’s top goalscorer, along with two Cups, Stamkos’s place in the sport’s history is secure. With Iginla and Sakic now in the rear-view mirror, the next up is another former Tampa Bay captain, with Dave Andreychuk another 14 goals away on 640.

For all his accolades, Stamkos still finds it “pretty surreal” hearing his name alongside that sort of company.

“Certainly Joe Sakic was the reason why I wore No. 19 as a kid growing up,” he said. “So it’s just so hard to comprehend it when you’re in the middle of it right now, and you see the list and you get asked about it, and it’s just you never thought you’d be there.”

Now into his third season in Nashville after leaving Tampa, Stamkos wasn’t able to help the Predators reach the playoffs in his first two campaigns, with the team finishing seventh and sixth in the Central Division the past two years.

But with Chris McFarland running the show as general manager after coming over from the Colorado Avalanche this summer, Stamkos feels the team is starting to ramp up.

“He has a vision, and the guys in this room trust that vision,” Stamkos said. “He’s been around the game for so long. He’s had a lot of success. So, I’d say obviously disappointing the last couple years, and where this group has failed to reach the playoffs, the expectation is the playoffs, and we’ve added some good, really good NHL players.”

Nashville head coach Andrew Brunette says that he’s seen Stamkos evolve as a player during his two-plus seasons coaching the former Tampa captain. But, as he explains, the best players always manage to find a way to stay relevant.

“I think he’s added to his game, and that’s hard to do,” he said. “It’s hard to do with the amount of success he had as an older player to be able to adapt to your new team and see your new team completely adapting to him. And he’s found a way to score, and he always has and he always will. Those scorers always find a way.”