Tampa Bay Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov becomes first NHL player to reach 100 points this season

Tampa Bay Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov has officially become the first NHL player to reach the 100-point plateau this season. In a Sunday afternoon game between the Lightning and New Jersey Devils, Kucherov put up one goal and three assists to bring his point total up to the triple digits. He has a six-point lead on Nathan MacKinnon who is second in the league in points with 96. Connor McDavid sits in a distant third with “only” 89 points thus far.

Kucherov has been having a remarkable season and is making a strong case to be a Hart Trophy finalist and potential winner of the prestigious award. He’s scored 102 points in his first 59 games of the season, which puts him on track for 141 points through 82 games. This would be a career-high for Kucherov and one of the best offensive seasons ever in the post-lockout era.

This is the fourth time in Kucherov’s career that he’s reached 100 points, the first three were in 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2022-23. He was on pace for more than 100 points in 2019-20 and 2021-22, respectively. The former didn’t end up happening because the season was shortened due to COVID-19 and the latter was due to injuries.

Kucherov could very well end up with career-highs across the board. His current career-highs are 41 (G), 87 (A), and 128 (PTS). He already has 38 goals so that’s a given that he’ll break through that personal best. The Russian winger has 64 assists this year and would need 24 in the final 23 games of the season to break his career-high in assists. He would need 27 points in the last part of the season to set a new career-high in that stat as well, which seems quite likely at this point.

Kucherov has been instrumental in keeping the Lightning as quasi-contender this year and delaying the inevitable fall from grace that has been expected to happen any year now, as the team collectively ages. The Lightning are currently second in the wildcard and will likely make the playoffs, which certainly would be a different story if Kucherov hadn’t exploded with a massive season this year.