Even as the 35-year-old Steven Stamkos slows down on the ice, the rumours about him continue to fly.

Things are not going well in Nashville, and haven’t been for two seasons running now. That’s led to countless trade rumours out of Music City, mostly centred on the large group of veterans GM Barry Trotz brought in a couple of years ago to reinvigorate the franchise. It’s had the opposite effect, and now those vets may be on the move.

Starting, potentially, with Stamkos. It’s his name that has been speculated about the most so far, anyway, and much of that speculation has included the Vancouver Canucks.

Jeff Marek was the latest to opine on this, telling Sekeres & Price to “Make no mistake about it, Vancouver is part of that conversation.”

According to Marek, it’s the Canucks and Montreal Canadiens that are the primary suitors for Stamkos right now. But is that theorizing, is that idle speculation, or is that a conversation that is actually happening in the front offices as we speak?

To find out, it’s probably best to assess the general realism and realisticness of the idea.

Stamkos has been having a 2025-26 to forget. His first season in Nashville was pretty awful, and saw him drop from the 81 points he had the year prior to just 53 with the Preds. But now he’s managed just five points through his first 20 games. The fall-off has been hard, and it’s hard not to imagine that it has something to do with Stamkos being relatively unhappy in Nashville.

So, the notion of getting him out of there isn’t too difficult to conceive of. At this point, Stamkos would almost certainly welcome a trade.

That would take care of the full no-movement clause attached to Stamkos’ contract. There’s no knowing whether or not he’d waive to come to Vancouver, another team in their own turmoil, but given how personal Stamkos’ struggles have been with the Predators, we kind of think he’d welcome an exit to just about anywhere.

But then, it’s not really the NMC that is the largest issue with Stamkos’ contract.

Stamkos is currently in the second year of a four-year contract that pays him an average of $8 million per season. That’s a hefty cap hit for any 35-year-old, and it’s especially so for one with five points on the year. But forget about the value for a moment – an $8 million cap hit is not one that the Canucks could reasonably afford, whether they wanted to or not.

So, we reach a point where retention becomes the only realistic option. Could the Canucks afford Stamkos at say 50% retention, giving him a $4 million cap hit for this and the next two seasons? Yes, most likely. Especially if they were able to flip, say, Filip Chytil in that transaction or another. Stamkos at $4 million would replace Chytil’s spot in the lineup at a slightly lesser cap hit. And there are other ways to achieve that amount of space, should the Canucks decide they want to hang on to Chytil instead.

The issue, however, comes from the cost of that retention. We don’t think the Predators are likely asking that high of a price for Stamkos himself, especially not at full value. He alone should come in at a price no higher than a second round pick, and that’s based almost entirely on past performance.

But the cost of three seasons of $4 million worth of retention is probably higher than the cost of Stamkos himself. That makes Stamkos at 50% a potentially expensive acquisition, and that’s where the value and wisdom of such a move becomes immediately questionable.

Any trade made for Stamkos is a bet on him regaining at least some of his Tampa Bay form. But that’s going to be harder and harder the further he gets past age 35. Were Stamkos to be traded to an established and thriving offensive system, maybe that would be different. But that’s not Vancouver. The odds of Stamkos experiencing a resurgence here are probably too low to justify the cost of the risk.

If there is any positive to glean from his Nashville experience, it’s that Stamkos has still managed to achieve positive possession and control statistics throughout his time there. That complete play, and Stamkos’ obvious knowledge of what it takes to win, can be seen as valuable assets in and of themselves. They’re just not assets worth paying as much for as Stamkos will cost.

Then there’s the question of position. Stamkos is still listed by most sources as an NHL centre, but he’s slowly but surely transitioned into a primarily winger role as he’s aged. That final 81-point season in Tampa was achieved mostly on the wing of Brayden Point or Anthony Cirelli.

The Predators have used Stamkos as a centre for a bit more than half of his time in Nashville. But then, the results have not been good. Many have questioned how much of Stamkos’ productive issues are due to him no longer being a fit for the position. Is he a better fit there than, say, Lukas Reichel? Sure, almost definitely. But clearing that bar still doesn’t make him a great option.

So, we end up with a situation in which the Canucks would have to pay a high price – at least a first-round pick, we’re thinking, if not more – just to be able to fit this player under the cap. All to make a bet that Stamkos is going to A) return to something resembling his Tampa Bay form and B) do so from the centre position, which is something even the Lightning had mostly stopped asking him to do.

That seems like a bad bet. It seems like a bet with odds so low, in fact, that the Canucks are almost certainly better off just betting on what they already have. At least then, they’re not risking any of their future on an unlikely outcome.

In fact, this reads like the exact situation Vancouver fans hope this front office can avoid. A low-yield, low-odds bet on an aging short-term asset that comes at the cost of valuable future-based pieces. That is a worst-case scenario for many.

Is Stamkos an acquirable asset? Yes. Is he someone the Canucks could theoretically afford? Yes. But is he someone they can realistically afford at a price that makes any sense? That is where we reach a bridge too far.

If the Canucks are truly as in the mix as Marek says, we hope that “in the mix” just translates to “kicking the tires.” As in, keeping an eye on how desperate the Predators become to move him, and how low their price for a 50% Stamkos drops.

But the odds of the price dropping to a range that eases all the other worries tied to this player are as low as any of the other odds we’ve discussed in this article. And when this many sets of bad odds are stacked upon one another, it’s probably best to just hold on to your chips.