{"id":553376,"date":"2026-03-22T14:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T14:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/553376\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T14:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T14:22:08","slug":"kucherov-on-quite-a-run-with-lightning-takes-nhl-scoring-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/553376\/","title":{"rendered":"Kucherov \u2018on quite a run\u2019 with Lightning, takes NHL scoring lead"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kucherov has taken his offensive game to another level in the calendar year. He has 67 points (22 goals, 45 assists) in 29 games since Jan. 1, which is 21 more than McDavid (46 points; 14 goals, 32 assists) and 23 more than Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon (44 points; 11 goals, 33 assist).<\/p>\n<p>He has two five-point games and seven four-point games this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat kid\u2019s on quite a run,\u201d Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. \u201cI don\u2019t how many players in this League have four points in a game period, let alone the amount of times he gets them.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s pretty magnificent. It was pretty cool that he got his first shorty tonight; that was a lot of fun on the bench.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And it came in a game featuring the top two scorers in the League. Kucherov got the upper hand in the end, scoring the Lightning\u2019s third and fourth goals and assisting on their first two.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m blessed to be able to see him every night, and I love when we come out West and true hockey fans get to see him,\u201d Cooper said. \u201c(Oilers fans) are blessed to see Connor McDavid every night and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/leon-draisaitl-8477934\" title=\"Leon Draisaitl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Leon Draisaitl<\/a>, and you get to throw \u2018Kuch\u2019 in the mix with the greats that play this game. It\u2019s fun for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cooper has been Kucherov\u2019s coach for the latter\u2019s entire NHL career, which began during the 2013-14 season. He also coached McDavid with Team Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympics and the 4 Nations Face-Off last season.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey couldn\u2019t be two more completely opposite players, yet they get the same things done,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cConnor is a racehorse and Kuch, he thinks, he slows it down and plays at his own pace.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re two elite, elite, players; they just do it two different ways and they\u2019re both impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But despite taking over the scoring lead, the three-time winner of the Art Ross Trophy as the League\u2019s leading scorer (2019, 2024, 2025), Kucherov said he puts team goals ahead of his own.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think about it (Art Ross Trophy) too much,\u201d Kucherov said. \u201cOur goal is the Stanley Cup, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re focusing on here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kucherov has taken his offensive game to another level in the calendar year. He has 67 points (22&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-553376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553376","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=553376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}