How much patience should Nashville Predators fans show in Steven Stamkos?

The highly-anticipated emotional return for Steven Stamkos to Tampa as a member of the Nashville Predators ended up being an epic hockey game that ended in an overtime win for the home team Lightning.

For Stamkos, I can only imagine how weird it was to come out wearing the opposition's sweater, while also being in the midst of one of his slowest offensive starts of his NHL career.

Being in the crowd, I can tell you that the overwhelming vast majority of Tampa fans were cheering on their beloved hero even though he was wearing a Predators uniform, and even assisted on both Predators goals. Most fans cheered loudly when the announcer brought up Stamkos as one of the helpers on the goals.

Entering the game, Stamkos had just one goal and lately I've been getting eerie Matt Duchene vibes in terms of how quick this fanbase is already ready to turn on the Stamkos signing after just under four months ago running around like it was a Stanley Cup parade when Stamkos signed with Nashville in free agency.

Stamkos has been underwhelming, but let's all calm down a bit

Duchene actually started off his Predators career in blazing fashion, and cooled off and became a more streaky player to only finish with 42 points in 66 games of his first year with the Predators. Fans quickly got highly critical of Duchene as well.

Now to be fair, Stamkos' individual play has been underwhelming and fans aren't wrong to be asking questions about what's going on. The expectations are insanely high being that he's a future Hall of Famer, and so many fans have zero patience to see anything less than elite play from the 16-year player now in his 17th season.

Stamkos' tribute came very early in the game in the first period, and I'm sure it was hard for him to stay focused early on. The guy is human after all, so I would hope that fans show some grace in that regard.

However, as the game grinded along and the Predators were in danger of getting ran out of Amalie Arena, they stormed back to tie it at 2-2. Goals from Ryan O'Reilly and Gus Nyquist.

Stamkos' primary assist to a streaking Nyquist in the slot was perfectly timed and an example of Stamkos just needing the game to come to him more natural and make the right play. He did that here.

Another thing that gives me high optimism that Stamkos will gradually get back to the offensive producer we're used to seeing him be all those years in a Lightning sweater is when you see his criminally low shooting percentage right now.

Stamkos has a 3.3 shooting percentage on 30 shots on goal. He's tied with Jonathan Marchessault for third on the team in shots on goal, only trailing your usual suspects Roman Josi and Filip Forsberg.

If Stamkos wasn't getting shots on goal and was basically invisible out there in trying to produce offense, I'd be much more worried about his fit here. But that's just not the case, not to mention he has an additional 64 shot attempts.

Stamkos' career shooting percentage is 16.7, so I'm sorry but I have to think that you'll see his shooting percentage dramatically increase as the season goes along. Especially as he settles in more with his new team and starts cashing in on all of his shot attempts.

In terms of how patient Predators fans should be with Stamkos underperforming, they have every right to be critical of his lackluster play to open the season. He has looked like an aging player that is with a new team and not fully comfortable yet. That's not an excuse, it's just what I'm seeing.

So in the end with us being only nine games into the Stamkos era, all I say is to take a deep breath and let things play out. I'm not going to go into freak out mode and say this was a horrible signing and Stamkos is awful for this team based on nine games.

It's the definition of a knee jerk reaction. If we're still having this conversation at the midway point of the season, then we can talk about what's really wrong with Stamkos and what's causing a future Hall of Famer to suddenly be a non-factor on offense.

Call me crazy, but now that this game is behind us, I can see Stamkos getting the weight off his shoulders and looking more towards the future with the Predators. Again, the guy is human and it had to be weighing on him. Now it's in the rearview mirror and it's time for the Predators to hit a hot streak.