Jeff Marek reveals Tampa Bay almost traded Nikita Kucherov in 2019 in a monster trade

While news are rare in the hockey world right now, many informants are taking advantage of this time of year to reveal some major information.

Often, they know much more than they can reveal publicly, because of their privileged relationships with various NHL executives and agents.

Some information must be kept secret, for obvious reasons, but may eventually come out publicly, years later, when it is no longer important to the teams involved.

This is one such case:



Imagine if this trade would have been made, it would have been huge for the CH! But hey, today it doesn't matter.

Speaking of huge, in the last few hours, it was the turn of the excellent Jeff Marek (Sportsnet) to reveal a big scoop.

According to Marek, we almost saw one of the biggest trades of the decade in 2019.

The Edmonton Oilers and Tampa Bay Lightning are the teams involved here:


It's hard to say how serious the talks got, or who decided to drop out, but imagine the scenario! Who do you think would have won?

We're talking about two of the NHL's elite players here.

You have to remember that at the time, Kucherov was coming off a season in which he had amassed 128 points (league high), but he was about to receive a massive pay raise, which was a big problem for Tampa at the time. They were trying to trade him for a young star forward, who would have cost a little less.

Plus, the Lightning had just been eliminated in four short games, by the Columbus Blue Jackets, and they clearly wanted to change the recipe.

Finally, they found a way to keep him (Kucherov) and clearly, they made the right choice. The least we can say is that they have since found a way to win in the playoffs, and not by much.


Credit: BoS