Lightning GM Julien BriseBois Draws Another Hard Line With Nikita Kucherov Contract Negotiations

The Tampa Bay Lightning have enjoyed great success recently, but Bolts GM Julien BriseBois is showing he won't just hand his team's icons a blank check on their next contract. Tampa moved on from Steven Stamkos, and now they're doing so with Nikita Kucherov. Are the Lightning the Vegas of the East?When you’ve had as much success as the Tampa Bay Lightning have had in the past nine seasons, you build up plenty of franchise icons along the way. In that span, the Lightning have won back-to-back Stanley Cups and reached the conference final a whopping four times. That’s a level of excellence few, if any, teams can boast of.However, in the past four seasons, the Bolts have lost in the first round of the post-season, winning just seven games in total in those four first-round series. Despite his best efforts, Tampa Bay GM Julien BriseBois has not been able to replicate the success he had from 2018 through 2022. Give BriseBois credit – rather than blindly reinvest in the veteran stars who delivered so much joy to the organization, he’s drawn a hard line in the sand and is essentially pushing two icons out the door.Related storiesIn 2024, BriseBois chose not to give superstar winger Steven Stamkos the contract he wanted. Stamkos’ final contract with the Lightning paid him $8.5 million per season, and rather than bring him back at something close to that amount, BriseBois let Stamkos leave for nothing in return, as Stamkos signed a four-year contract with the Nashville Predators worth $8 million per season. This weekend, the bombshell dropped – the Lightning weren’t prepared to extend superstar winger Nikita Kucherov’s contract, and Kucherov has indicated he won’t re-sign with Tampa Bay when he becomes a UFA this coming summer. Kucherov currently earns $9.5 million per year – the highest salary of any Bolts player –, but reports indicate he’s seeking a substantial raise on his next deal. That could look like $15 to $20 million per season, as some reports have indicated he's looking for a contract similar to Kirill Kaprizov's $17 million AAV. If BriseBois was prepared to meet that ask, an extension would’ve been done by now. So, if BriseBois and Lightning ownership are going to take a hard-line stance against two superstar players and eventually move on from both, is it time we start calling the Bolts the Vegas Golden Knights of the Eastern Conference? Certainly, both franchises can now be classified as take-no-prisoners organizations – and both can be ruthless in their pursuit of championships year-in and year-out. The easy road for some teams in the Lightning’s predicament would be to hand over a blank check to their superstars, and worry about filling out a roster after that. But imagine, for one second, if another Cup-winning organization cut the cord with a pair of their icons who pushed them into the winner’s circle. There would be riots in the streets in certain markets if they did what BriseBois did with Stamkos, and what he’s now doing with Kucherov. It would be an unforgivable sin to push legends out the door, but BriseBois obviously has a line he’s not prepared to cross, and if it means moving on from excellent players who still have a good deal of high-level hockey left in them, so be it. The Golden Knights have become famous – or infamous, depending on who you ask – for casting aside productive players as they attempt to be a Cup front-runner each and every season. Now, you have to put the Lightning in the same boat. Because it isn’t as if Stamkos and Kucherov were at the end of their careers when BriseBois decided not to meet their monetary demands. Stamkos was 34 when he left Tampa Bay, and he had a 42-goal season for the Preds last year. Kucherov will be 34 in June, and he’s still one of the league’s very best competitors. To be fair, this gamble BriseBois is taking with Kucherov could work out well for Tampa Bay. If Kucherov’s game starts to fall off, paying him almost double what he’s presently earning would significantly hamper the Bolts’ ability to ice a strong squad for the foreseeable future. But the opposite end of that spectrum would see Kucherov thriving in another team’s uniform, and that would drive Lightning fans delirious with anger. BriseBois is tempting fate by playing with fire with his team’s best player. But a clear principle is at play here, and you have to give BriseBois his due for taking a stance he knows his paying customers won’t like. It would be one thing if the Bolts took this approach with just one aging star, but doing it with two sends a message: anyone on the team could be moved on from if they don’t fit the budget. And unless something changes and Kucherov winds up staying a Lightning for the rest of his NHL career, the Lightning have to be looked at as Vegas South-East – a team that will willingly pass on players who once were their everything. It’s definitely a bold strategy, but it’s one with the potential for utter disaster.For action-packed issues, access to the entire magazine archive and a free issue, subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free.