Steven Stamkos named Tampa Bay's Masterton nominee for the fourth time

The Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy is awarded annually to the National Hockey League player "who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey."
With that in mind, Steven Stamkos is an obvious choice to represent the Tampa Bay Lightning. He is Tampa Bay's Masterton nominee this season, the fourth time he's earned that distinction in his 13 NHL seasons.

Stamkos has been besieged by a litany of injuries during his career of late that has forced him to miss parts of multiple regular seasons and playoffs: a broken leg, a lateral meniscus tear, the thoracic outlet syndrome that required surgery to remove a blood clot.
Last season, Stamkos was robbed of the final seven games of the regular season and nearly all of Tampa Bay's run to the 2020 Stanley Cup -- save for a five-shift, 2:47 effort in Game 3 of the Cup Final versus Dallas where he scored the most iconic goal in Lightning history to aid the Bolts in their 5-2 win - after suffering a core muscle injury that required surgery during the NHL pause. In Stamkos' effort to get back for the postseason, he sustained a compensatory injury that kept him from making an expected return except for that brief moment in Game 3 when he produced greatness but reinjured himself and had to sit the remainder of the run.
Despite the numerous setbacks, Stamkos readied himself again for the start of the 2020-21 season and was on the ice for Opening Night when the Lightning raised their 2020 Stanley Cup championship banner halfway up to the rafters, waiting until fans were in the building to raise it all the way up. Stamkos returned to a superstar level this season, scoring 17 goals and recording 34 points through 38 games, averaging nearly a point a game.
A lower-body injury sustained April 8 at Columbus kept him out of the lineup for the final month of the regular season. Stamkos is expected to return when the Lightning begin the First Round of the playoffs against in-state rival Florida.

"Anytime you get hurt, it's not fun," Stamkos said last week during his first media availability since the setback in early April. "Unfortunately for me, I've had to deal with a lot of stuff lately. It can get very frustrating. There's no one that wants to be out there more than myself. But you have to put in the work."
Stamkos was leading the Lightning for goals at the time of his injury and finished the season ranked tied for second on the Bolts. He paced Tampa Bay for power-play goals and ranked tied for fifth among all NHL players. Stamkos notched double digits for power-play goals for the fourth-consecutive season and 10th time overall in his career.
He was also one of the NHL's top face-off men in 2020-21, winning 57.2 percent of his draws, ninth best among players with 100 or more face-offs.
"When you've had the surgeries that I've had in the past, on the leg, the knee, the core, it's all connected," Stamkos said. "It's frustrating. Like I've said before, you're never going to feel the same way you did before all that stuff. Things happen that unfortunately, no matter how much hard work or rehab you put in, prehab you put in, things just happen when you've had those significant injuries. I do see the light at the end of the tunnel right now. I've been working extremely hard."
A Masterton nominee from each of the 31 NHL teams was selected in a poll of all chapters of the PHWA at the end of the regular season. The nominees will be whittled down to three finalists and a winner will be named at a later date.
The trophy was presented by the NHL Writers' Association in 1968 to commemorate the late Bill Masterton, a player for the Minnesota North Stars who exhibited, to a high degree, the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey. Masterton died on Jan. 15, 1968, after an injury sustained during a game.
The trophy was first awarded following the 1967-68 season to the Montreal Canadiens' Claude Provost.
Stamkos is attempting to become the second Lightning player to win the award. John Cullen was the 1999 recipient after he returned to playing after two bouts with cancer. Cullen was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 1997 and battled the disease for 18 months before attempting a comeback with Tampa Bay for the 1998-99 season, playing in four games before retiring and becoming a Lightning assistant coach that season and the next.
Alex Killorn was Tampa Bay's nominee last season.