Another Big Night In The Bay

It seems like every time we turn around, Nikita Kucherov adds another milestone number to his career totals. Yesterday afternoon, in the Lightning 4-1 win over the Devils, Kucherov had a hand in all four goals. He scored once and added three assists. The point totals pushed him to over 100 on the season. He sits at 102 as of this writing.

It's the 4th time in his ten year career that he's hit the century mark in points in a season. He hit 100 in 2018, lead the league with 128 in 2019 and had 113 last year.

With hitting the century mark, he becomes the 5th active player in the league to have hit the 100 point mark in a season at least four times. The other guys are Sidney Crosby (six times) Conor McDavid (six times), Leon Draisaitl (four times) and Alex Ovechkin (four times).

He's the first player to hit the 100 point mark this season. He also did that in his Art Ross year in 2019. He joins a pretty elite list of guys who became the first player to hit the century mark multiple times in their career. The other guys are kind of good. The list includes Wayne Gretzky (nine times), Mario Lemieux (six times), Phil Esposito (six times), Conor McDavid (five times), Jaromir Jagr (four times), Guy Lafleur (three times), Sidney Crosby (twice) and Evgeni Malkin (twice).

Yes, we realize that's a lot of numbers to be throwing at you at once. But, believe me, it's helping to build a case here. As of this writing, the Lightning sit 5th in the Atlantic division with 69 points, just one back of Detroit. That's good enough to get them the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference as the last wild card spot. It's a seven point lead on the New Jersey Devils, the next closest team to them.

You take Nikita Kucherov out of the Tampa lineup, they aren't close to sniffing that last playoff spot. That's my point. The guy is the frontrunner for the Hart as league MVP this year (which would be the 2nd time in his career he's won it should he be able to snag the award). Sure you can also make an argument for Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche as well. Take MacKinnon out the Avs lineup, they fall well out of 3rd place in the Central division (where they currently sit). You can even make a case for Conor McDavid in Edmonton, has his play as of late has helped get the Oilers back into the playoff race in the West.

The biggest reason this sticks in my craw so much is that there are some people in the national hockey media that are pushing hard for Auston Matthews of the Maple Leafs to take MVP. Not to take anything away from what Matthews is doing this year, as of now he's the leagues only 50 goal scorer. But you take hi m out of the Leafs lineup, they are still a talent heavy team and can still be a playoff team with him not there. You take Kucherov out in Tampa., the Bolts go nowhere.