Friedman: teams ready to pay Kucherov this superior price per year if he reaches free agency

Elliotte Friedman said on 32 Thoughts that a ton of teams will be ready to pay Nikita Kucherov six years at $20 million a year if he reaches free agency.

That is a monster number for a 33-year-old, and it lands on a day when the Kucherov rumor mill is already running hot. The Lightning star is in the final season of his current deal and is set to become an unrestricted free agent at expiry. No extension has been signed.

NHL Watcher passed along Friedman's comments on X, and the message is that the market for Kucherov would not be small.

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The timing matters. Earlier today, a report tying Nikita Kucherov to the Maple Leafs made the rounds, and nothing in it was confirmed.

Then came word that Kucherov reportedly wants to play with Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews or David Pastrnak, according to an NHL source who spoke to RG.org. So the speculation keeps stacking up, while Tampa Bay has said nothing about his future in anything we can point to.

Why Kucherov will not lack suitors

Start with what he is still doing. Kucherov has 18 points in 13 games this season, with 4 goals and 14 assists, and he sits at +5.

Over his NHL career he has 1,141 points in 892 regular-season games. He added 177 points in 159 playoff games. Teams don't hand out $20 million a year on reputation alone, but with a résumé like that, the ask doesn't look absurd to the buyers Friedman is describing.

The Lightning are 8-3-2 and fourth in the Atlantic Division, so this isn't a team in a hurry to sell or lose anything. Jon Cooper's group went 6-0-0 at home, but dropped a 5-4 shootout decision in Nashville on Saturday night and hosts the Red Wings on Tuesday.

Here's my take: a $20 million annual price tag for a player who will be 34 when it kicks in is a real gamble, and somebody is going to regret the last two years of it. But one of the 32 teams will say yes anyway, and that is the whole point of the market Friedman is describing.

The pressure now sits with Julien Brisebois. Every point Kucherov adds before the summer makes the price climb, and the Lightning still have no extension to show for it.

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