Every athlete enjoys individual success, but for the most part, athletes in team sports don't enjoy it more than making the playoffs.
The one goal every hockey player has at the beginning of the season is help their team in any way they can to win a Stanley Cup.
Sure, the individual goals like reaching a certain amount of points are in a player's mind, too, but we imagine most would choose having a down year but winning a Cup over having a good year but watching the playoffs from home.
Nikita Kucherov, who enjoyed a career year for the Lightning by posting career highs in points (85), goals (40) and assists (45) in just 74 games, is one of those players that would rather be playing playoff hockey right now.
Wednesday, Kucherov shared his frustration with Sovietsky Sport about not making the playoffs in an epic rant, and as per the Tampa Bay Times, here's the translation:
“Some guys overstayed in team. They’ve got their money and stopped working. They knew there’s no competition for their positions and the organization is not going to take someone else. They played not really well this year. You can see it in their stats and way of play. When we played together and I made a pass, they even were not expecting this. That’s why this season was hard for me despite good stats.
“We had great chemistry with [Vladislav] Namestnikov and [Steve] Stamkos at the start of the season. We understood each other really really well. And then Stamkos was injured, I was very upset. I think those nine games were my best in the NHL. After that coaches started shuffling lines. Partners were changing like in a kaleidoscope. It was very hard to get used to it, because guys didn’t play at Stamkos level. It’s hard to explain how I played with them. We had a lack of understanding of each other and there were some problems. I was suffering torments all season, because I couldn’t find perfect chemistry with other partners after Stamkos injury. We played with Jonathan Drouin once, and it was good. But coach didn’t put us together again for some reason.”
Feel free to guess who Kucherov is talking about teammate wise in the first paragraph because we're not going to.
We are, however, going to sympathize with Kucherov. You can tell how important winning is to him and if you're a fan of the team, you have to like that he's mad Tampa didn't make the playoffs.
Through his agent, Kucherov clarified his comments were out of frustration and nothing more:
Joe Smith asked Steve Yzerman about the comments and here's what he had to say:
The fact that Kucherov said he wants to spend the entirety of his career in Tampa should make fans want to back him even more.
He wants to bring a Cup to Tampa, and sure, maybe this wasn't the way to go about voicing frustrations, but at the same time there's nothing wrong with voicing how you feel and showing how passionate you are about winning.
(H/T: Tampa Bay Times, NBC Sports)
