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Lightning's Nikita Kucherov first to 100 points this season with pretty tally

Stan Temming


Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning has made it clear that the 100 points that he scored in 80 games last season wasn’t a fluke.

With an explosive one-timer on the rush against the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday, the 25-year-old Russian has collected his 100th point of the season. This time around, he only needed 62 games to hit the mark.

Flying down the ice alongside Tyler Johnson, he rifled his teammate’s silky pass past Buffalo’s netminder Carter Hutton. His 30th goal of the season made it 1-1 midway through the second period.

Although he was kept off of the scoresheet in a 5-2 win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday, Kucherov now has eight goals and 19 points in his last seven games.

He is officially the first player in franchise history to record multiple 100-point seasons, according to StatsCentre. He’s also the first player since 1996 to collect 100 points before March 1st, according to Sportsnet Stats. A couple of men named Jaromir Jagr and Mario Lemieux did that 23 years ago.

That’s some pretty good company to be in.

On top of his tally in regulation, he went on to score the winner in the shootout later in the night as Tampa Bay came away with a 2-1 victory to extend their lead atop the NHL standings even further.

Nikita Kucherov celebrates with teammates after scoring the goal that proved to be his 100th point of the 2018-19 campaign. (Photo by Casey Brooke Lawson/NHLI via Getty Images)
Nikita Kucherov celebrates with teammates after scoring the goal that proved to be his 100th point of the 2018-19 campaign. (Photo by Casey Brooke Lawson/NHLI via Getty Images)

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