Tampa Bay Lightning F Nikita Kucherov Still Remains A Mystery…For Now
As the Tampa Bay Lightning enters the final full month before the start of the 2016-17 season, Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov is still without a deal for the upcoming season.
When the Tampa Bay Lightning returned home from the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh following their Game 7 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2016 Eastern Conference Final, the question on the top of everyone’s minds is when the Lightning would be able to re-sign captain Steven Stamkos.
As the off-season is coming to a close, Lightning fans are growing incredibly wary due to the fact the Bolts leading point scorer in the 2015-16 season, Nikita Kucherov, remains without a new deal. Given the stressors fans have dealt with in the past with Stamkos, and the amount of cap space the Lightning have right now, we can see why Tampa Bay Lightning fans would be worried.
Do you know who’s not worried about this situation…Tampa Bay Lightning Vice President and General Manager Steve Yzerman and Lightning Head Coach Jon Cooper. Do they know something we don’t; quite possibly. Whatever the case may be, both sides seem confident a new deal will get done.
Tampa Bay Lightning
In an interview with Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times, Coach Cooper expressed his confidence that everything will work out in the end.
"“I’m confident Kuch is going to sign back,” Cooper told Smith."
There is one very plausible reason why the Lightning may not have been able to reach a deal with Nikita Kucherov at the current time. As most of you know by now, the 2016 World Cup of Hockey is about to kick off at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, home of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The event is scheduled to kick off on September 17th and run through October 1st. As you can imagine, there is a lot of preparation that goes into an event like this one; especially from a player’s perspective. Not only do they need to be ready in time for the tournament to start, but they also need to be ready for the regular season.
This whole ordeal may be something as simple as a player wanting to concentrate in the upcoming international competition and work on the contract once the competition is completed. At the same time, this would leave a very small window of time to get things ironed out.
On the bright side, players like Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman, and Alex Killorn have all said the team has committed to winning with the team as it currently stands and were willing to take less money than they were obviously worth in order to stay right here in Tampa Bay.
We would be lying to you if we told you we didn’t have our fair share of apprehension about the entire ordeal and the way it has played out, but Steve Yzerman has proved to be one of the most skilled General Managers in the National Hockey League, and as we have said before, if there is anyone who can get the job done, it’s Yzerman.
Next: Tampa Bay Lightning Year In Review: Andrei Vasilevskiy
While the off-season is quickly coming to a close, there is still plenty of time for a deal to be signed. We know it’s nerve wracking to wait to see how this situation is going to play out, but…at least for now, we have faith that if there is a deal to get done, Steve Yzerman is the man who will get the job done.