Nikita Kucherov Wants Out, And He’s Not Alone

There is a sign outside the NHL league offices in New York and Toronto (yep, there are two of them) stolen from construction sites that reads: "(Number Of) Days Since The Last Trade Demand." The current number is 3, and the latest is the strangest so far. It came from Tampa's notoriously taciturn star Nikita Kucherov, who had told his teammates on a team flight that he 1) would not re-sign with the Lightning next summer, 2) wants to be traded somewhere else, and 3) intends to keep playing for the time being while his wishes are accommodated by the team. That last part won him the defense of his coach, Jon Cooper, but it also won a public rejection from general manager Julien BriseBois. So yeah, stay tuned for more fun in our next exciting episode. Kucherov is the fourth big-name NHL player to seek immediate relocation to the players' new favorite team, SOTH (Somewhere Other Than Here). His pursuit of SOTH has been more amicable than his peers' because he didn't make a public show of his unhappiness (that's what agents are for) and is not refusing to play. Indeed, he assisted on three of the four Tampa Bay goals in their 5-4 shootout loss to the highly ordinary Predators, so a case can be made that he is still giving his all for the olde towne team. A better case could probably have been made if we had bothered to watch the game, but transparency requires that we admit we were watching the WNBA because every Game 7 is by definition better than every other game in any other sport at any other time.

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