from Katie Strang of ESPN,

One of the league's scoring leaders, Tampa Bay Lighting center Steven Stamkos has evolved since breaking into the league as a first-overall draft pick in 2008. Stamkos tells ESPNNewYork.com's Katie Strang about his maturation as a player, the advice he's received from teammate Martin St. Louis and which baseball team has his heart (sort of) in this week's installment of the New York Minute.

STRANG: What's your take on this team as we near the midpoint of the season?

STAMKOS: I think we got off to a great start. Obviously, we took advantage of the good schedule in our favor, a lot of home games, catching teams back-to-back, [we] got off to a 6-1 start. Since then, it's been a little bit of a different story. Went through some tough times there -- I think we lost five, six in a row. But I think we're really starting to find the identity of our team. I think we've been playing a lot better. [We're] not necessarily getting the results we want in terms of points, but the process is ongoing and at least we're seeing some signs of life and seeing signs of guys picking up on things we're going over as a team, whether it's on practice or video. We're getting there. We've played some pretty good teams lately. When we're in the game, we've got to find ways to beat them if we want to be a good team, but the process has started to take its course, I think.

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