{"id":214846,"date":"2026-04-01T18:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T18:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/214846\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T18:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T18:26:09","slug":"nikita-kucherov-named-nhls-first-star-of-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/214846\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikita Kucherov named NHL&#8217;s First Star of March"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FIRST STAR \u2013\u00a0NIKITA KUCHEROV, RW, TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING<br \/>Kucherov, despite missing two games, led the NHL with 9-17\u201426 in 14 contests to power the\u00a0Lightning\u00a0(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\u00a0tied for the seventh-most in League history. 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:\u00a0Wayne Gretzky\u00a0(14),\u00a0Mario Lemieux\u00a0(8),\u00a0Marcel Dionne\u00a0(6),\u00a0Phil Esposito\u00a0(6),\u00a0Guy Lafleur\u00a0(5),\u00a0Jaromir Jagr\u00a0(4),\u00a0Connor McDavid\u00a0(4) and\u00a0Bobby Orr\u00a0(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\u00a0NIKITA KUCHEROV, RW, TAMPA BAY LIGHTNINGKucherov, despite missing two games, led the NHL with 9-17\u201426 in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-214846","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\/214846","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=214846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}