{"id":390348,"date":"2026-01-05T21:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T21:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/390348\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T21:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T21:28:07","slug":"kucherov-leads-3-stars-of-the-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/390348\/","title":{"rendered":"Kucherov leads 3 Stars of the Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2013 Tampa Bay Lightning right wing Nikita Kucherov<\/a>, Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney Crosby<\/a> and Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews<\/a> have been named the NHL\u2019s \u201cThree Stars\u201d presented by GEICO for the week ending Jan. 4.<\/p>\n

FIRST STAR \u2013 NIKITA KUCHEROV, RW, TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING<\/p>\n

Kucherov, the League\u2019s \u201cFirst Star\u201d for the second consecutive week, posted 3-7\u201410 in three contests to help the Lightning (25-13-3, 53 points) extend their winning streak to seven games (dating to Dec. 20) as they moved into first place in the Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference. He compiled five points across a pair of matchups in Southern California, notching 1-1\u20142 in a 4-3 overtime victory against the Anaheim Ducks Dec. 31 and 1-2\u20143 in a 5-3 triumph versus the Los Angeles Kings Jan. 1. Kucherov then registered 1-4\u20145, his eighth career five-point performance, in a 7-3 win over the San Jose Sharks Jan. 3. The 32-year-old Kucherov, who has captured each of the past two Art Ross Trophies (and three overall), ranks fourth in the NHL with 20-39\u201459 through 37 total appearances this season \u2013 aided by a seven-game point streak (7-10\u201417), coinciding with Tampa Bay\u2019s winning streak, that has featured six straight multi-point outings as well as goals in each of the last five contests. Kucherov also places among the 2025-26 leaders in even-strength assists (4th; 26), even-strength points (4th; 41), assists (t-4th; 39), power-play points (t-8th; 18), power-play assists (t-9th; 13), even-strength goals (t-15th; 15) and goals (t\u201117th; 20).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2013 Tampa Bay Lightning right wing Nikita Kucherov, Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney Crosby and Toronto Maple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-390348","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}