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Steven Stamkos Rumors: Anything Can Happen

If there's anything Flyers fans have learned in the past couple of weeks, it's that anything can happen. Some knew Jeff Carter would be out, but who saw Mike Richards being dealt? I know I sure as heck didn't.

Now, as Friday's deadline quickly approaches, there are rumblings that the Flyers could go after superstar Steven Stamkos. Some writers say it could happen and some say it won't happen.

Frank Seravalli of the Daily News has been adamant that the Flyers will offer Stamkos a contract:

A source close to the situation told the Daily News that the Flyers' brass spent yesterday afternoon crunching numbers and mulling over whether to send an offer sheet to Stamkos' agents.

The offer sheet, which would still allow Tampa Bay first right of refusal, would be expected to be a deal of around 13 or 14 years and north of $100 million, which would put Stamkos on the Flyers' payroll for a manageable cap hit if the Lightning chose to not match the deal.


As of last night at 5 P.M., the Flyers were permitted to send Stamkos an offer sheet, but they failed to do so.

Seravalli says:

That could change at some point today.

 On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Philadelphia Inquirer's Sam Carchidi says there's no chance the Flyers nab Stamkos.

Two sources connected to the Flyers dismissed the rumors on Tuesday.

"Not happening," one club executive said.

"I think we're blockbustered out," said Peter Luukko, another club executive, referring to the bombshell trades that sent Mike Richards to Los Angeles and Jeff Carter to Columbus last week.

Apparently, the Tampa Bay Lightning are prepared to match ANY offer. Carchidi goes on to say that the Flyers still need to sign Wayne Simmonds and Jakub Voracek. They would also like to re-sign forward Ville Leino.

The Flyers currently have $8,281,905 in cap space according to CapGeek. I personally don't see any other way the Flyers could contend for Stamkos without getting rid of Leino. He will easily demand $2-3 million per year. Obviously, if you gave me a choice between Leino and Stamkos, you know who I'd take.

The moral of the story is that given all of the events that went down last week, it's hard to trust any "source" within the Flyers organization. Anything is possible.