After emotional Tampa tribute, Stamkos writing new legacy in Nashville

TAMPA — Everywhere Steven Stamkos looked, there was another memory.

The Tampa waterfront where he and his teammates celebrated two Stanley Cup championships on jet skis and party boats. The arena ice where he tallied so many of his goals (555) and points (1,137) in 1,082 games, all of them the most in Tampa Bay Lightning history. The long concourse he’d walk down on countless gamedays, past a narrow concrete rink where his son Carter would practice slapshots like his dad’s. The Zamboni entrance where Carter would gleefully obsess over the ice resurfacing machines in his father’s arms.

“Most of my life has been here,” Stamkos said, glancing around a lounge inside Amalie Arena. “This is where it all began as an 18-year-old kid. Where I grew up from a boy to a man to a Stanley Cup champion. Where I became a husband and a father.”

It still felt like home, but now he was a visitor. Stamkos stepped on the ice for warmups on Monday in a No. 91 Nashville Predators jersey: His new team, the one that handed him a four-year free-agent contract after a very public, very contentious negotiation with the Lightning failed to produce a new deal.

After 16 seasons, Steven Stamkos is no longer a member of the Lightning; and for the first time in 16 seasons, the Lightning didn’t have Steven Stamkos as their star on and off the ice.

“Steven Stamkos and the Tampa Bay Lightning are going to be synonymous with each other until the end of time. He did everything we asked of him for many, many years,” coach Jon Cooper said.

That is, until the Lightning asked something of Stamkos that he refused to do: Sign a significantly discounted contract extension to give them salary-cap flexibility.

Entering the final year of an eight-year, $68 million contract in 2023-24, Stamkos indicated he wanted to extend that deal and finish his career with the Lightning. But at training camp last year, Stamkos told the media he was “disappointed” to not have engaged in meaningful contract talks with GM Julien BriseBois.

At the time, BriseBois said he also wanted Stamkos to retire with the Lightning and that they shared a mutual goal of winning another Stanley Cup. But he said there wouldn’t be a blank check for this star captain when the team…