NEW YORK (March 23, 2026) \u2013 Tampa Bay Lightning right wing\u00a0Nikita Kucherov, Nashville\u00a0Predators\u00a0left wing\u00a0Filip Forsberg\u00a0and Montreal\u00a0Canadiens\u00a0right wing\u00a0Cole Caufield\u00a0have been named the NHL\u2019s \u201cThree Stars\u201d presented by GEICO for the week ending March 22.<\/p>\n
FIRST STAR \u2013 NIKITA KUCHEROV, RW, TAMPA BAY\u00a0LIGHTNING<\/p>\n
Kucherov moved into first place in the Art Ross Trophy race by leading the NHL in goals (6), assists (t-7), points (13), game-winning goals (t-2), shots on goal (t-20) and plus\/minus (+11) across four contests as the\u00a0Lightning\u00a0(43-21-5, 91 points) completed a 3-0-1 week. He notched 3-2\u20145, his seventh career hat trick and ninth career five-point performance (that also included his 63rd career game-winning goal), in a 6-2 triumph over the Seattle Kraken March 17. Kucherov then registered 1-2\u20143, his ninth three-point effort of the season, in a 6-2 win against the Vancouver Canucks March 19. He followed that with 2-2\u20144, featuring his League-best ninth outing with at least four points in 2025-26, team-leading seventh game-winning goal of the campaign, 40th overall tally of the season and first career shorthanded goal\/point, in a 5-2 decision versus the Edmonton Oilers March 21. Kucherov then added one assist in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Calgary Flames March 22. The 32-year-old Kucherov, who was as many as 22 points back of first place in the Art Ross Trophy race this season (through games of Dec. 23<\/a>), now tops the NHL with 40-79\u2014119 through 65 total appearances as he pursues his third straight and fourth overall scoring title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (March 23, 2026) \u2013 Tampa Bay Lightning right wing\u00a0Nikita Kucherov, Nashville\u00a0Predators\u00a0left wing\u00a0Filip Forsberg\u00a0and Montreal\u00a0Canadiens\u00a0right wing\u00a0Cole Caufield\u00a0have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-202713","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\/202713","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=202713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}