The Tampa Bay Lightning 2025-26 Midseason Awards

As the 2025-26 season regains its steam from the Olympic break, Bolts writers Benjamin Pierce and Thompson Brandes get together to give trophies out to the players and their memorable moments through the first half of the season. Some accolades will be real—awarded to the top performances and milestones of note. Others, not so much—mainly here to celebrate the awesome, wacky and viral times the season had to offer. Cool? Cool. Let’s hand out some hardware.

MVP Award: Nikita Kucherov

I’m running out of words to describe the greatness that is Nikita Kucherov.

The two-time defending Art Ross Trophy winner as the NHL’s leading scorer is once again among the top offensive players in the game, and somehow his play seems to keep improving with each game.

Kucherov has 29 goals and 91 points through 51 games and is only five points shy of tying Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid for first in the NHL, despite McDavid playing seven more games. He’s averaging 1.78 points per game to lead all NHL players, and his 62 points at even strength are 18 more than Brandon Hagel, who sits second on the Bolts with 44.

He’s got eyes in the back of his head, and his playmaking continues to amaze. He hasn’t been afraid to fire the puck either, sitting just eight goals shy of tying the 37 markers he tallied last season.

I’ll leave you with this crazy stat:

In his last 25 games since Dec. 9, Kucherov has 57 points. That’s more than the leading scorer on 15 NHL teams for the entire 2025-26 season, including Anaheim, Calgary, Chicago, Florida, Los Angeles, Nashville, New Jersey, the New York Islanders, Philadelphia, Seattle, St. Louis, Toronto, Utah, Vancouver and Washington. – Benjamin Pierce 

The SportsCenter Top Play of the Midway Mark: Andrei Vasilevskiy & Jake Guentzel

Let’s start by calling out the obvious: this is the wildest this category has been in some time. So far, ’25-26 has been the season of the big play, with an uncanny number of titanic moments entering the Bolts stratoshpere. There was Kucherov’s 1,000^th point, Jon Cooper’s 1,000^th game, the crazy shootout win over Chicago, the Stadium Series comeback, all the workings of the 15-game point streak—the list goes long.

But the most insane moment of them all—the play you’re showing the aliens to illustrate the vast merits of hockey—was Andrei Vasilevskiy’s double skate save into Jake Guentzel’s OT game-winner over the Oilers.

Rewatching the sequence now still makes me feel things for the game of hockey that few other sports have achieved. Seeing it live and in-person must have been like mainlining jet fuel. What is the equivalent of that play in any other sport? Antoine Winfield delivering a game-saving peanut punch in overtime and returning it 99 yards for a touchdown? (Just typing that out felt ridiculous.) I can’t wait to YouTube this highlight 50 more times before the season’s over. – Thompson Brandes 

Best Defenseman Award: JJ Moser

JJ Moser has been stellar this season, surpassing what was a strong debut with Tampa Bay in 2024-25.

Tampa Bay has seen usual stalwarts Victor Hedman, Ryan McDonagh and Erik Cernak miss time with injuries this season, and Moser has more than stepped up. It’s part of what earned the Swiss Olympian a fresh eight-year contract with Tampa Bay in December.

Moser, 25, is playing a career-high 22 minutes, 10 seconds per game in 2025-26—more than three minutes more per game than last season—and leads all NHL defensemen in plus-minus at +39. He leads the Lightning blue line with 53 games played, and his teammates have repeatedly referenced his steady presence.

He has also flashed some snarl this season, mixing it up in post-whistle scrums and being quick to defend his teammates as well as the Lightning crease.

Lightning head coach Jon Cooper has referred to Moser as an "eraser," complimenting his ability to make breakdowns disappear. The numbers show it, too.

He plays nearly three minutes per game on the penalty kill to rank inside the top 25 in the entire league, and his work at even strength ranks even higher—Moser holds a 69.4% even strength goals-for percentage which ranks second among all NHL defensemen to appear in at least 30 games this season. – BP

The Tony Soprano Award for Most Entertaining Fever Dream: 2026 NHL Stadium Series

From the moment the 2026 NHL Stadium Series was announced to be held in Tampa to the week of the big game, the talk was about the weather. How will ice be possible in Florida? Would any players lose a limb in the humidity? There was more discussion surrounding the local forecast than Denis Phillips going live from a hurricane. To most throughout the greater hockey universe, the concept felt like a pipe dream.

Then the coldest weekend forecast in a decade dropped, and Bert Kreischer rolled into town, and Pat Maroon kicked off Gasparilla, and Kings of Leon rocked Benchmark International Arena, and the Lightning arrived to Raymond James Stadium dressed as the Bucs, and Jon Cooper arrived to the bench dressed as Tony Montana (more on that later), and the Bolts and Bruins gave us the most dramatic overtime thriller in Stadium Series history.

The clairvoyant minds behind the entire weekend’s buildout had it right all along. The spiked hot chocolates may have ran out in the first period, but it was all for the glory of the outdoor game. – TB

The Most Improved Award: Darren Raddysh

We just talked about the way Moser has stepped up, and for much of that time he’s played alongside one of the league's premier defensive weapons this season in 29-year-old Darren Raddysh.

Perhaps the biggest improvement for Raddysh has come defensively amid the Lightning injuries. He leads all Tampa Bay players in time on ice at 22:33 per game, and his usual offensive prowess has taken another step in 2025-26.

Raddysh has scored 17 goals, third-most among all NHL defensemen, and his 52 points this season rank sixth. His 1.06 points-per-game rating ranks fourth among NHL defensemen, and his 32 points at even strength tie for seventh on the same list.

His booming shot on the power play helped the Lightning rediscover their attack on the man advantage, as his nine power-play goals pace the entire Tampa Bay roster and all NHL defenders.

“He's just been unbelievable,” teammate Jake Guentzel said of Raddysh. “He's got a lethal shot, and when he gets open on the power play it's pretty cool to see what he can do. He's playing unbelievable hockey, and he's been fun to watch."

The puck is going the right way with Raddysh on the ice—he ranks 10th in the NHL for shot attempt percentage, as the Lightning own 56% of the shot attempts when he is on the ice. He is the only top-10 scoring defenseman who is also in the top 15 for shot attempt percentage.

It’s been a dynamic offensive season, but Raddysh is more than pulling his weight in his own end, too. – BP

The Tyler Durden Award for Most Popular Fight Club: Brandon Hagel and Matthew Tkachuk

Hagel-Tkachuk I grabbed the spotlight of the national media after their 4 Nations Face-Off melee ignited one of the most memorable games in years between USA and Canada. But since the Winter Olympics aren’t very privy to hockey scraps, a rematch seemed highly unlikely one year later.

Of course, the hockey gods scheduled Lightning-Panthers as their final game before departing for Milan. And much to the surprise of no one, Hagel and Tkachuk gave the people what they wanted—nay, needed—after Tkachuk laid a potshot to the back of Nikita Kucherov. Hagel responded by spreading a nice poutine gravy on his knuckle sandwich, and thus, Hagel-Tkachuk II was born. After the game, Hagel expanded on his actions:

“Nikita Kucherov’s our best player, he continues to do incredible things. Probably stay away from him.” – TB

The Heart and Soul Award: Andrei Vasilevskiy

One of the most impressive parts of this season is that this award could have been handed to a number of players, but it has to go to the Lightning starting goaltender who also has an argument for Team MVP with the way he’s played.

Vasilevskiy has been one of the NHL’s steadiest netminders all season and co-leads the league with 27 wins. Among goalies with at least 20 starts this season, his .920 save percentage and 2.11 goals against average are best in the NHL.

The 31-year-old goalie holds a 17-game point streak as of the current Olympic break, posting an unbelievable 16-0-1 record since Dec. 20. That’s the longest point streak by any NHL goalie in six seasons.

The last goalie to beat it? None other than the Big Cat, who went 19-0-2 in a 21-game run during the 2019-20 season.

As for the heart and soul? What says ‘heart’ more than skating down the ice for a goalie fight to stand up for a teammate at a sold-out Raymond James Stadium earlier this month at the 2026 NHL Stadium Series, and then going on to win the game for good measure? – BP

The Toe Blake Award for Achievement in Fedora: Jon Cooper

When Lightning coach Jon Cooper joined the esteemed 500 Club for all-time coaching wins in 2024, he did so by tying Montreal player and coaching legend Toe Blake. At the 2026 Stadium Series, a touch over two years later, Cooper and Blake (or Jon and Toe, if you prefer) linked their legacies up again when the Bolts coach joined the coveted society of Guys Coaching Hockey In Fedoras.

In the 1950s, Blake encored a Hall of Fame playing career—in which he won a Hart Trophy and three Stanley Cups with the Canadiens—by becoming Montreal’s head coach a mere four years after retirement. He then won eight (8!) more Stanley Cups as coach, cementing the Canadiens as one of the most dominant teams in league history. Blake did all of this, of course, in an undefeated collection of old-timey hats. Fedoras, apple caps, ballcaps—he did it all. Guys like Punch Imlach and Billy Reay joined him in visualizing the ice beneath the brim. But I’ve yet to find a photo of any of them minding the bench in a red-feathered, white pinstripe number, making Cooper’s now-legendary Stadium Series fedora a worthwhile entry into history.  – TB