{"id":590652,"date":"2026-04-07T05:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T05:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/590652\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T05:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T05:58:08","slug":"nikita-kucherov-nets-400th-career-goal-in-lightnings-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/590652\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikita Kucherov nets 400th career goal in Lightning’s loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Nikita Kucherov<\/a> scored the 400th goal of his career Monday night in the Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a>‘s 4-2 loss<\/a> to the Buffalo Sabres<\/a> at the KeyBank Center.<\/p>\n

Kucherov, 32, netted a power-play goal in the first period, off assists from Jake Guentzel<\/a> and Darren Raddysh<\/a>. It was his 43rd goal of the season, and he now has 126 points, which tied him for the NHL lead with Edmonton Oilers<\/a> forward Connor McDavid<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kucherov became the NHL’s eighth Russian-born and second Lightning player to score 400 goals. Former Tampa Bay forward Steven Stamkos<\/a> scored his 400th on Nov. 15, 2019.<\/p>\n

But the rest of the night belonged to the home team. Jason Zucker<\/a> tipped in Bowen Byram<\/a>‘s shot for the go-ahead goal 7:38 into the second period, and the Sabres tightened the race for the Atlantic Division title.<\/p>\n

Jack Quinn<\/a>, with an assist from goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen<\/a>, sealed the win by scoring into an empty net with 1:54 left. Josh Norris<\/a> and Alex Tuch<\/a> also scored. Buffalo snapped a minor 2-3-2 slump to tie the Lightning atop the division with 102 points, and two ahead of idle Montreal entering the final 10 days of the season.<\/p>\n

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Luukkonen stopped 23 shots to improve to 10-2-1 in his past 14 appearances and strengthen his hold on the starting job.<\/p>\n

Jake Guentzel added a goal and assist for the Lightning, who lost in regulation for only the third time in 14 games (9-3-2). Andrei Vasilevskiy<\/a> made 25 saves in falling to 7-2-1 in his past 10 outings.<\/p>\n

The Sabres never trailed and were greeted by a standing ovation upon returning home since clinching their first playoff berth in 15 seasons Saturday.<\/p>\n

“I thought our whole team played really well. We just wanted to come out with a lot of energy and a lot of emotion,” Tuch said on the team’s postgame show on MSG Network. “The fans helped us to get into it.”<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO, N.Y. — Nikita Kucherov scored the 400th goal of his career Monday night in the Tampa Bay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-590652","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}