Well, mark this down as something we did not expect to hit our timeline on Friday afternoon.

According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, Nikita Kucherov has informed his teammates and the Lightning that he will not be re-signing and wants out of Tampa Bay.

Friedman shared that the exact reasons for Kucherov wanting out are unclear at this time, and that both Lightning general manager Julien Brisebois and Kucherov’s agent Dan Milstein declined to comment on the matter.

This is jaw-dropping news, given Kucherov’s stature and reputation around the league. The 33-year-old right winger is the reigning Hart Trophy winner, having captured his second league MVP award after posting 44 goals and 86 assists for 130 points and a plus-43 rating in 76 games.

To paint the picture of how truly crazy this news is: the reigning MVP of the league, who has been nominated for the award for three straight seasons, is the only player besides Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl to lead the league in scoring, and over the last five seasons, is second in the entire National Hockey League in points per game at 1.6, who has made the playoffs in all but one of his 13 years in Tampa Bay, advanced to four Stanley Cup Finals, won two of them and just became the franchise leader in points, just asked for a trade.

Kucherov is a pending unrestricted free agent, and it appears negotiations between him and the Lightning haven’t gone as he hoped. After playing 891 regular season games, scoring 405 goals and 1,139 points, and 159 postseason games, adding 54 goals and 177 points, all in a Lightning uniform, it appears we will soon see Kucherov no longer sporting the white and blue.