Nikita Kucherov entered the 2025-26 season as the reigning Art Ross Trophy and Ted Lindsay Award winner, and he certainly showed why once again for the Tampa Bay Lightning.<\/p>\n
Kucherov is a finalist for the Hart Trophy and the Ted Lindsay Award once again due to his regular season performance, although his performance in the playoffs did leave some to be desired.<\/p>\n
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Games Played – 76 – Missing six games likely prevented Kucherov from winning a third straight Art Ross Trophy.<\/p>\n
Goals – 44 – Tied a career high, the 2025-26 season marks the fourth time that he reached the 40-goal plateau.<\/p>\n
Assists – 86 – The third most in a season for Kucherov. His 86 assists also marked the first time he matched his jersey number with a counting stat in his career.<\/p>\n
Points – 130 – The second highest point total of Kucherov’s career, trailing just his 144 point season in 2023-24. He finished second in the NHL in points, trailing just Connor McDavid (138).<\/p>\n
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Shots – 231 – The lowest since the 2021-22 season when he was limited to 47 games.<\/p>\n
Shooting Percentage – 19.0% – The highest of Kucherov’s career and is over four percent higher than his career average.<\/p>\n
Time on Ice – 20:20 – The third highest of his career.<\/p>\n
Game-Winning Goals – 8 – Tied for the second most game-winners in his career. He set his career high last season, with nine.<\/p>\n
Plus\/Minus – +43 – A new career high. Kucherov’s previous career high was +38, which he recorded in the 2014-15 season.<\/p>\n
Giveaways – 124 – The most of his career, surpassed his previous career-high, which was set last season, by two.<\/p>\n
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Takeaways – 21 – The fewest since the 2013-14 season.<\/p>\n
Penalties Drawn – 27 – The fourth-most of his career.<\/p>\n
Goals – 1 – The first playoff goal for Kucherov since 2023, only his second playoff goal in four years.<\/p>\n
Assists – 5 – The second most on the Lightning.<\/p>\n
Points – 6 – The third most on the team, finished just under a point-per-game pace with six points in seven games.<\/p>\n
Hardest Shot – 92.06 MPH – Kucherov’s hardest shot of the season came against the St. Louis Blues on December 22, 2025. His 92.06 MPH shot put him in the 90th percentile league wide.<\/p>\n
Max Skating Speed – 22.44 MPH – Kucherov’s speed is sticking around despite him being in his 30s, his max speed placed in the 61st percentile.<\/p>\n
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Total Miles Skated – 244.04 – Kucherov’s total is nearly double the league average and placed in the 95th percentile.<\/p>\n
Nikita Kucherov had a regular season to remember, as he nearly chased down McDavid for the Art Ross Trophy and once again made himself a finalist for the Hart Trophy and Ted Lindsay Award.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nikita Kucherov entered the 2025-26 season as the reigning Art Ross Trophy and Ted Lindsay Award winner, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[114801,96105,114805,16976,114802,135,862,137,136,114804,114803],"class_list":["post-266991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-art-ross-trophy","tag-connor-mcdavid","tag-hart-trophy","tag-nikita-kucherov","tag-season-performance","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-lightning","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-ted-lindsay","tag-ted-lindsay-award"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266991","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=266991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}