MVP Award: Nikita Kucherov<\/p>\n
I\u2019m running out of words to describe the greatness that is Nikita Kucherov.<\/p>\n
The two-time defending Art Ross Trophy winner as the NHL\u2019s leading scorer is once again among the top offensive players in the game, and somehow his play seems to keep improving with each game.<\/p>\n
Kucherov has 29 goals and 91 points through 51 games and is only five points shy of tying Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid for first in the NHL, despite\u00a0McDavid playing seven more games. He\u2019s averaging 1.78 points per game to lead all NHL players, and his 62 points at even strength are 18 more than Brandon Hagel, who sits second on the Bolts with 44.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s got eyes in the back of his head, and his playmaking continues to amaze. He hasn\u2019t been afraid to fire the puck either, sitting just eight goals shy of tying the 37 markers he tallied last season.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll leave you with this crazy stat:<\/p>\n
In his last 25 games since Dec. 9, Kucherov has 57 points. That\u2019s more than the leading scorer on 15 NHL teams for the entire 2025-26 season, including Anaheim, Calgary, Chicago, Florida, Los Angeles, Nashville, New Jersey, the New York Islanders, Philadelphia, Seattle, St. Louis, Toronto, Utah, Vancouver and Washington. \u2013 Benjamin Pierce\u00a0<\/p>\n
The SportsCenter Top Play of the Midway Mark: Andrei Vasilevskiy & Jake Guentzel<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start by calling out the obvious: this is the wildest this category has been in some time. So far, \u201925-26 has been the season of the big play, with an uncanny number of titanic moments entering the Bolts stratoshpere. There was Kucherov\u2019s 1,000th point, Jon Cooper\u2019s 1,000th game, the crazy shootout win over Chicago, the Stadium Series comeback, all the workings of the 15-game point streak\u2014the list goes long.<\/p>\n
But the most insane moment of them all\u2014the play you\u2019re showing the aliens to illustrate the vast merits of hockey\u2014was Andrei Vasilevskiy\u2019s double skate save into Jake Guentzel\u2019s OT game-winner over the Oilers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MVP Award: Nikita Kucherov I\u2019m running out of words to describe the greatness that is Nikita Kucherov. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-167271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}