Paul Bissonnette spent the weekend calling the Tampa Bay Lightning‘s contract offer to Nikita Kucherov a lowball and saying he hoped the winger walked. Tampa Bay supporters queued up to tell him he had no idea what he was talking about. On Spittin’ Chiclets, he gave them a longer answer.
“I don’t know what’s being said in these negotiations, or what the exact offer on the table is. But if the first one was 13 and then it moved to 15, yes,” Bissonnette said. “Tampa fans who are all up in my f**ing mentions saying I don’t know what the f I’m talking about — that is a disrespectful offer to the reigning Hart champion.”
He then made the part of the argument that supporters tend to find hardest to dismiss.
“A guy who, the reason that you’ve gotten so much enjoyment as a fan, is a big part of Nikita Kucherov,” he said. “In the summertime when guys are like, ‘Oh, I’m going to go home and f*** around a little bit with my buddies.’ No. I’m going to be in Tampa on the ice for an hour every day, working on my skills, bettering myself and my teammates.”
Nikita Kucherov in Tampa Bay:
| Category | Total |
|---|---|
| Seasons | 14 |
| Franchise points record | 1,142 |
| Stanley Cups | 2 |
| Hart Trophies | 2 |
Why are Lightning fans angry at Paul Bissonnette?
He has taken a position that puts the blame squarely on their club rather than on the player asking out, at a moment when a lot of them would rather it went the other way. His original post called the organization pathetic and said he hoped Kucherov told them where to go.
The follow-up was worse, because he spelled out what he wants to happen.
“Slap in the face offer, a disrespectful one. And I hope he says ‘f*** you’ and you get nothing in return and he finishes off the season there,” Bissonnette said. “And then he goes and gets exactly what he deserves somewhere else. And he goes and wins one.”
The figures underpinning all this come from Kevin Weekes, who reported that Tampa opened at around $13 million a season and moved to $15 million only after the Leo Carlsson offer sheet and Cale Makar‘s contract reset the market. Kucherov’s camp is reportedly seeking $20 million.
Kucherov himself has been considerably more diplomatic than the man defending him. He said on Monday that the request was never about the money, but about poor communication and respect, noting he had spoken to the club twice in four months.
He also keeps playing. Kucherov has 18 points in 13 games and the Lightning sit 8-3-1.
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