Elliotte Friedman just said a GM told him the weekend report on Nikita Kucherov's contract ask was correct, as Tampa Bay's star heads toward a July deadline.
The Lightning winger is in the final season of his current deal and has no extension signed. That has turned every conversation around him into a trade conversation, and it has been building for days.
Friedman relayed what the GM told him on the 32 Thoughts podcast, according to the post from R i N K Y.
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The GM told Friedman he believes the report of 6 x $20 million was correct, whether or not it matches what Kucherov actually wants. Friedman then moved into the poker game he says now surrounds the situation, though the post cuts off there.
Remember how this started. Our earlier piece on Nikita Kucherov's contract demands from the Lightning said he wanted between 18 and 20 million, while Tampa Bay's offer sat at 15. That is a wide gap for a player of this caliber.
Friedman's source puts weight on the higher end of it.
What a $20 million ask does to the trade market
A price like that shrinks the list of buyers fast. Any team trading for Kucherov is not just paying in assets, it is taking on the negotiation too, and the player can walk as a UFA when the deal expires.
Earlier this weekend, Pierre LeBrun's Canadiens and Kucherov trade chatter raised the possibility that Montreal could be on his list, though Tampa Bay would not deal him inside the division. A separate mock proposal sent him to the Utah Mammoth.
| GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | |
| 2026-27 | 13 | 4 | 14 | 18 | +5 |
| Career | 892 | 404 | 737 | 1141 | +205 |
None of that is hard to understand when you look at what he is still doing. Kucherov has 18 points in 13 games this season, with 14 of them assists, and he is listed with no injury.
He is 33, a 2011 second-round pick, and he owns 1141 regular-season points over 892 career games. Nobody is going to call a $20 million ask unreasonable on production alone.
Paying it for six years to a player who turns 34 is another matter, and that is a bad bet for most teams. Tampa Bay's $15 million offer looks far more defensible than the number floating around.
The standoff has no resolution yet. Kucherov's current deal ends after this season, so every week without an extension pushes the Lightning closer to a decision they would rather not make.
Should the Lightning pay Nikita Kucherov $20 million a year to keep him?
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