- Nikita Kucherov said today’s NHL game is “faster, but very dumb. Low IQ”
- The reigning Hart Trophy winner put up 130 points last season, second only to Connor McDavid
- Read below for the full exchange, the video, and where his contract talks stand
Nikita Kucherov has never been one for long answers, and Lightning media day handed him a fresh chance to prove it.
Asked Wednesday how hockey has changed over the years, the 33-year-old took about three seconds to answer.
“The game is faster, but very dumb. Low IQ.”
Jay Recher, the reporter who asked the question and posted the clip, pushed for more. In what way? Kucherov gave him three words.
“The hockey way.”
Kucherov softened it slightly later in the same scrum, allowing that plenty of guys around the league still have high IQ and are fun to watch. Then he returned to his point about everybody else.
Coming from most players, a line like that gets ignored. Coming from Kucherov, it travels.
Voters made him league MVP in June, the second Hart Trophy of his career, and he collected it while finishing second in league scoring. His 130 points in 76 games came on 44 goals and 86 assists, tying a career high in goals. Only Connor McDavid finished ahead of him.
Speed has never been the thing that makes him work. Reading a play a half-second before everyone else is the whole act, which is why a complaint about hockey IQ out of his mouth carries more than it would from anyone else.
Watch the full media day availability:
The quote landed on a day Tampa Bay had plenty else to sort out. Kucherov is entering the final season of the eight-year, $9.5 million deal he signed in 2018, and the new CBA took effect Wednesday, which caps any new contract at seven years. The eight-year window shut without a deal getting done.
General manager Julien BriseBois said talks with agent Dan Milstein are still going and called Kucherov one of the best players who has ever played. Both sides wanted this finished before camp, and it isn’t.
Kucherov was asked about his own situation and gave roughly the answer you would expect.
“I control what I can control and I’ll do my best with what I can on the ice, and that’s what I’m focusing on right now.”
He needs 14 points to become the highest scorer in Lightning history. All 879 games of his NHL career have come in Tampa, which gives him a decent sample size to judge the rest of the league from.
