In recent times, Connor Hellebuyck has been traded by the Winnipeg Jets after asking out, and on top of that, former Detroit Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin was suspended by the team after he refused to play until he was traded.
With the trade deadline still months away, it wasn't expected that anything major would be happening elsewhere in the near future, but on Friday afternoon, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman dropped a bombshell that nobody in the National Hockey League saw coming.
According to Friedman, the 33-year-old has informed both his team, and alongside Dan Millstein, the organization that he won't be extending this summer when his current contract is up, and would prefer to be traded by the team that drafted him back in 2011.
In that time, Kucherov has blossomed into one of the greatest wingers the league has ever seen, tallying 405 goals and 1,139 points across 891 games played, alongside being a huge piece of the back-to-back Stanley Cups the team won in 2020 and 2021. The 2026/27 season for Kucherov was the final of an eight-year, $76 million deal he signed heading into the 2019/20 campaign, but now, we officially know that it will be his final one with the organization.
However, what makes this even more surprising and unpredictable is that a trade will not be easy to come by, as the Lightning aren't rebuilding, and any contending team that would want to acquire the former two-time Hart Trophy winner likely won't have win-now pieces to give up. That puts General Manager Julien Brisebois into a very tough spot, and while a trade may not come to fruition immediately, it's likely not going to drag out until the March trade deadline.
According to Pierre LeBrun, Kucherov doesn't have a full no-trade clause, but instead a 10-team trade list, and given how difficult Larkin and Hellebuyck were for their teams, this is clearly something that will make a deal much easier to come by. Ultimately though, Kucherov has posted 4 goals and 15 points in 12 games this year after posting 130 a year ago, and given what he's still got to offer at 33-years-old, there could be several blockbuster deals in the NHL across the next few weeks.