Steven Stamkos is still grappling with the reality that he and his fellow Tampa Bay Lightning teammates are headed to the Stanley Cup Finals against the Chicago Blackhawks.
The series, set to kickoff Wednesday, June 3 in Amalie Arena in Tampa, will pit a team with zero Stanley Cup Finals experience, Stamkos' Lightning, against a franchise that has now appeared in three of the last six finals series, emerging is Cup champions twice.
In short, the Blackhawks boast a boatload of been there, done that and the Lightning are still working on getting their feet wet.
Stamkos sounded unconcerned when discussing his group's lack of experience as opposed to Chicago recently.
"Experience is a great thing to have, but you have to go through at one point or another to gain it," Stamkos said, via Corey Long of NHL.com. "For us I think we've grown a lot as a team throughout these playoffs.
"Everyone has Game 7 experience now, we didn't have that at the beginning of the playoffs. Everyone's been a conference champion now, we didn't have that at the beginning of the playoffs. So you have to go through it to gain that experience and this is another step going toward the ultimate goal of winning the Cup."
Stamkos, still just 25, has seemingly blossomed into a true leader for Tampa Bay during these playoffs. He's got seven goals and 10 assists in 20 postseason games thus far, but more importantly, he's doing the small and the big things - he moved to the wing, allowing Valterri Filppula to take over at center, something a rival GM dubbed "very impressive and unselfish" - to help his Lightning team win.
The maturing captain said that he's doing his best to keep his focus on Game One and ignore the rest of the media blathering going on around him. Still, Stamkos admitted that he still hasn't quite come to grips with the fact that he's about to take part in the Stanley Cup Finals.
"I don't think it's really truly going to sink in until we drop the puck, to be honest," Stamkos said. "I know there's going to be a lot of smoke and mirrors with the media attention and all that. We came [Monday] and it was sort of a light day to get things organized. We just want to focus in on the business aspect, the game itself. That's what we're preparing to do.
"Get these next couple of days out of the way and it's game on."
