Steven Stamkos and the Tampa Bay Lightning have yet to start contract talks. (USATSI)
Steven Stamkos and the Tampa Bay Lightning have yet to start contract talks. (USATSI)

Entering the final year of his contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning, Steven Stamkos is free to sign a new contract extension with the team at any point before he is eligible to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1.

At this point the two sides have yet to begin talks, something that will do nothing to silence the vultures (aka: the Toronto media) that are expecting Stamkos to leave after the upcoming season and return to his hometown (Toronto).

But Stamkos' agent Don Meehan basically told TSN on Wednesday that it's really nothing to be concerned about at this point if you're a Lightning fan because these types of things take quite a bit of time to get done.

"Steven is only a few weeks away from being in the Stanley Cup Final and he’s only just got back to Toronto this past week so he’s going to have an opportunity of getting his feet back on the ground and then coming in and having a discussion with our group in the office. Then we would go from there. 

"I don’t think we have any criteria on timing at this point in time. I’ve mentioned to Steve Yzerman that we’re going to have a meeting with Steven, and then once we’ve had the meeting with Steven, then I can go back to Steve [Yzerman].

"He understands that and understands that Steven is in the process of coming back home and getting acclimatized here and getting into his training. He understands the time frame in that respect."

"Anytime either management or the player’s side is negotiating a contract or dealing with issues like this, it’s substantive, it’s complicated, it’s detailed and it takes some time."

Stamkos is entering the final year of a five-year contract that pays him $7.5 million per season, a number that currently ties him with Pavel Datsyuk, Jason Spezza, and Vladimir Tarasenko after his new deal that he signed with the St. Louis Blues this week.

Obviously, he is looking at a significant raise on his next deal, one that is likely to put him in the same neighborhood as Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Evgeni Malkin near the top of the NHL. In the end, this is a new deal that is still likely to get done. Stamkos has said multiple times that he is commited to signing a new deal with the Lightning, while the team has made extending him its top priority this summer. But if something unforeseen were to happen and Stamkos were to actually reach the free-agent market it would probably be unlike anything we've seen in the NHL in quite some time because players like him simply do not reach the open market anymore. 

Stamkos, who is only 25 years old, is one of the top players in the NHL and is pretty much the second-best goal scorer of his generation (behind only Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin) and is coming off of a 43-goal effort with the Lightning this past season. He already has 276 goals in 492 career games and is a two-time goal scoring champion.