Chances are Ozzy Wiesblatt won’t ever forget the night of Dec. 2, 2025.
The most likely reason for that remembrance? The rookie scoring his first NHL goal, of course.
He’ll probably recall fellow newcomer Reid Schaefer also happening to collect his first NHL tally in that outing as well.
But there was another moment from that 5-1 victory over Calgary at Bridgestone Arena that led Wiesblatt to just shake his head and smile after the final horn.
“It’s ridiculous - they're video game numbers,” Wiesblatt uttered when asked what it was like to see veteran teammate Steven Stamkos collect his 1,200th NHL point that night.
Some version of Wiesblatt’s sentiment has been repeated in various forms with regularity by Stamkos’ teammates over the past month or so. That’s because the veteran forward can’t stop further etching his place in the League record books.
On that occasion in early December, it was point No. 1,200. Then came a four-goal game in the midst of a 7-2 victory over St. Louis on Dec. 11.
Next, Stamkos potted the overtime winner in Minnesota on Dec. 23 right before the Christmas break. A few days later, he tallied twice in the final frame to lead Nashville’s comeback against Utah for goals 598 and 599.
Then, on New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas, and with his patented power-play one-timer from the left circle, the future Hall-of-Famer clapped a shot into the twine for the 600th time.
With permission previously granted from the NHL to do so, his teammates streamed off the bench for congratulatory hugs, fist bumps and looks of astonishment for just the 22nd player in League history to accomplish the feat.
But it was what Stamkos did on Saturday night in Calgary with the Predators up by a single goal in the dying seconds of regulation that seemed to carry just as much weight as all of the other accomplishments, at least in the eyes of the Preds.
Stamkos, the 600-goal scorer, sacrificed his body to block one final Flames shot which, at the very least, likely would have caused potentially harmful havoc at the Nashville net had it gotten through.
Instead, as the game ended and Stamkos limped around the ice in his own end, his teammates began to surround him instead of the customary ritual of congratulating the winning goaltender first.
“I think what we saw the other night in Calgary was just pure leadership,” Preds winger Luke Evangelista said of Stamkos’ efforts. “That's the beauty of the sport. I mean, for a guy like that who’s just finished getting a 600th career goal, and the next game, he's blocking a huge [one-timer] with two seconds left in the game to steal the win for us - I mean, that's just leadership.”
“It’s pretty evident [of how tight this group is] with ‘Stammer’ blocking a shot late in the game,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “For a 600-goal scorer to lay his body on the line in a game in January just speaks volumes of his leadership and his character.”
The tools to determine what the 35-year-old Stamkos means to this Predators team have been readily available over the past few weeks. All one has to do these days is watch what No. 91 seems to do on a nightly basis for his club and the evidence will come to the forefront.
“I feel like he's really stepped up for us in a time when we need points and we're trying to climb in the standings,” Evangelista said. “His play, I mean, he's leading us. He’s doing it all. He's scoring goals, blocking shots. It's been awesome to watch, and I think everyone's just kind of feeding off of it.”
The younger players on the Nashville roster aren’t the only ones with something to benefit from watching Stamkos, either. Linemate Filip Forsberg, who has 334 NHL goals of his own, has been impressed with how Stamkos carries himself in the one-and-a-half seasons they’ve been teammates.
“He’s just an unbelievably talented player, and he’s also a very professional guy,” Forsberg said of Stamkos. “You see the work he puts in every day, and he just does the right things to prepare himself to then do the right things out there… I think it’s guys like him and [Ryan] O’Reilly, a similar example, of guys who are out there working on their game, they’re in the gym working on their fitness, and that rubs off on everyone. I'm obviously closer to their age than some of the guys in this team, but it's inspiring to me, too.”
For Evangelista, whom Stamkos dubbed the “Dishin’ Magician” after the winger had three assists during Stamkos’s four-goal game, there’s something special about playing with the veteran.
There’s no element of being starstruck when sharing the same locker room, but Evangelista isn’t afraid to admit there’s still part of him that can’t help but admire the man sitting a few stalls down.
“You settle in over time in those kind of situations, but I remember meeting him for the first time at camp last year and just shaking his hand,” Evangelista recalled. “I mean, I grew up watching him, and it’s not just him. Like, I watched [O’Reilly] hoist the Cup. [Josi] has been around forever, [Forsberg], [Saros], all these guys. It feels like it’s not real at the beginning, and then you sink into it a little bit. But yeah, [Stamkos] is just another one of those guys that you grow up watching, idolizing, especially him being another Ontario boy. You follow his path quite a bit. And yeah, that first time you meet him, you're shaking a little bit, but he's been great with us as a teammate, as a guy.”
Nowadays, those jitters are long gone. Instead, Evangelista has made sure to let Stamkos know how much he’s appreciated being a part of recent pinch-me moments - most recently the jubilant in-game celebration in Vegas.
“He deserved that moment,” Evangelista said of the Preds coming off the bench. “It was super cool to be a part of. I told him that. And, his return to Tampa [last season], they’re two of the coolest things I've seen just in terms of atmosphere amongst the team and in the rink. It’s been awesome to be a part of those moments with him.”
While the shot block in Calgary didn’t come with the same fanfare around the rest of the League as other recent occurrences, the reverberation through the Nashville locker room epitomized the way this group feels about one another - and what they’re willing to do to win for each other.
“I mean, the block from ‘Stammer’ is huge,” Preds defenseman Nic Hague said following the win against the Flames. “It's maybe not the first guy you think of when it comes to selling out at the end of the game to block a shot, but it just kind of shows what kind of player he is, and he does it all… That’s just kind of who we are. So, it's great to see. Everyone gets fired up for a moment like that… It's almost bigger than scoring a goal, right? It’s maybe [stopping one instead], so it's fun. I'm sure he's going to feel it tomorrow, but it makes it worth it, because we know we got the win.”
The current campaign has only reached the halfway mark for the Predators, and while the final result remains to be seen, one thing is for certain - there’s been no shortage of entertainment to this juncture.
Stamkos has plenty to do with that, and most importantly, he’s helped the Preds to become the kind of team Brunette called “as tight of a group” as he’s ever been around.
That’s saying something from a hockey lifer, and Stamkos might just deliver a few more wins while providing the kind of moments that only come around with one of the greatest players in NHL history on the roster.
And if nothing else, the chance to play with Stamkos? Well, that’s still rather sweet.
“It's so cool to be playing on his team,” Wiesblatt smiled back in December. “I remember not even too far back, I'm playing [an NHL video game], and I'm Steven Stamkos. [It's] so cool to be on his team and around him. To be here for him to hit a milestone like that, it’s super special and really cool.”
