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Bolts' Stamkos Still Smiling

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By ERIK ERLENDSSON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 22, 2008

OTTAWA - Less than 24 hours after being selected with the first overall pick in the NHL entry draft, Steven Stamkos still had a smile on his face as wide as the Hillsborough River.

While the Tampa Bay Lightning front office staff tended to business on Day 2 of the draft, making seven additional selections, Stamkos was still making the rounds inside Scotiabank Place during what has been, and will continue to be, a whirlwind week that he is trying to enjoy as much as possible.

"I think when I woke up this morning I still had a smile on my face with the Lightning No. 91 jersey right beside my bed, and I just kind of looked at it and thought back to Friday night with all the emotions. It just hit me," Stamkos said. "It wasn't a dream; my dream did come true. I'm just trying to enjoy it and savor it all in."

By the end of the week, he knows it will be time to get back to work.

"I've got awhile here to enjoy the moment, have some fun and share this experience. But after that, it's a job now," he said. "It's something that I'll have to do in order to be successful, so it's back to work."

Down on the draft floor, the Lightning used their allotment of second-day picks to add a goaltender, a pair of centers, two right wingers and three defensemen. But it's the last pick of the day that might create some interest.

With the 203rd overall pick, Tampa Bay selected defenseman David Carle, the younger brother of San Jose defenseman Matt. David Carle was expected to be drafted as high as the second round, but Thursday he was diagnosed with a heart ailment that will almost certainly prevent him from continuing his career at the University of Denver. Friday, Carle informed all 30 teams he was opting out of the draft.

A message to Carle's agent, Kurt Overhardt, was not immediately returned.

But Carle told his hometown paper, the Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News, that tests performed at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota revealed the 18-year-old has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the heart that has been cited in the sudden death of young athletes. The abnormality was first noticed at the NHL draft combine last month and is normally not detected until after death.

"That's why the disease is so scary," Carle told the Daily News. "You don't know you have it. Oftentimes, your first symptom is your last symptom."

New Lightning owner Oren Koules made the call to select Carle.

"The kid worked his whole life to be drafted in the NHL and I didn't see a reason he shouldn't be," Koules said through a team spokesman.

Lightning general manager Jay Feaster had hoped the team could land an NHL player with the first pick in the third round - the team's first selection of the day. But after 6-foot-4 defenseman Eric Mestery, one of a couple players the team had its eye on as its turn approached, was taken by Washington four picks prior to Tampa Bay's spot, the No. 62 pick was dealt to San Jose for a fourth-round and fifth-round pick Saturday and a third-round pick in the 2009 draft.

Reporter Erik Erlendsson can be reached at (813) 259-7835 or eerlendsson@tampatrib.com.

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