{"id":576023,"date":"2026-04-01T22:11:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T22:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/576023\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T22:11:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T22:11:07","slug":"kucherov-leads-3-stars-of-the-month-for-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/576023\/","title":{"rendered":"Kucherov leads 3 Stars of the Month for March"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Kucherov, despite missing two games, led the NHL with 9-17\u201426 in 14 contests to power the Lightning (46-22-6, 98 points) to an 8-6-2 month as they neared their second straight 100-point season and third in the past five years (also 2021-22). He found the scoresheet in 11 of his 14 appearances to additionally rank among the top March performers in assists (1st; 17), even-strength points (t-2nd; 18), even-strength assists (t-3rd; 11), goals (t-8th; 9), even-strength goals (t-8th; 7) and plus\/minus (t-8th; +10). The two-time defending Art Ross Trophy winner registered four assists on March 7 at TOR to hit the 100-point milestone for the fourth straight season and sixth time overall \u2013 tied for the seventh-most in League history<\/a>. He finished the month with six total multi-point performances, including a trio of games with at least four points (also March 17 at SEA: 3-2\u20145 and March 21 at EDM: 2-2\u20144), while ultimately reaching the 120-point mark for the third consecutive year and fourth time overall \u2013 a total achieved by just eight other players in NHL history: Wayne Gretzky (14), Mario Lemieux (8), Marcel Dionne (6), Phil Esposito (6), Guy Lafleur (5), Jaromir Jagr (4), Connor McDavid (4) and Bobby Orr (4). The 32-year-old Kucherov sits second in the League with 40-81\u2014121 through 68 overall games this season, also placing among the leaders in points per game (1st; 1.78), assists (2nd; 81), power-play assists (t-3rd; 29), plus\/minus (4th; +42), goals (t-5th; 40), game-winning goals (t-5th; 7) and power-play points (6th; 36).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FIRST STAR \u2013 NIKITA KUCHEROV, RW, TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING Kucherov, despite missing two games, led the NHL with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-576023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576023","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=576023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}