Kucherov again playing at MVP level for Lightning

Long after most of his teammates had packed up and left, after the bustle had died down and the assembled reporters were dispersing, Nikita Kucherov sat in his stall in the visiting dressing room in Boston, tucked into a dark corner. His face lightly red from the exertion of playing 23:01 of hockey that Saturday night, he stared straight ahead, nearly unblinking.

The Tampa Bay Lightning forward had, yet again, done all he could. He had scored a goal and added two assists, both beauties to Brayden Point, and his team had lost.

“When you have guys on your team that are striving for goals and greatness and championships, it motivates the whole room,” Lightning forward Nicholas Paul said. “So, for him to set high goals and have emotion in the game and see frustration -- he could be having a great game and still not be happy with himself.

“It kind of says, ‘All right, what’s the expectation I have on myself? Am I asking enough of myself for this team?’”

It’s a season that could end with Kucherov winning the Hart Trophy as the NHL most valuable player, a season when his coach and his teammates have said he might be playing better than he did when he won the award in 2019, and yet, at least after this game, a 7-3 loss to the Boston Bruins on Jan. 6, he was left stone-faced and silent.

Two days later, Kucherov was asked if that’s true, if this could be better than 2018-19, when he had 128 points (41 goals, 87 assists) in 82 games.

“I never thought of that,” he said. “I’m just trying to do my best to help the team win. It’s been a tough stretch for us right now. We just need to figure it out, get on the same page and play better.”

If anyone can get the team to do that, it’s Kucherov, the once-unheralded forward who has grown into one of the consistently best players in the NHL. And who, should he continue at this pace, would be on track for 138 points at the end of the season; he leads the League with 75 points (28 goals, 47 assists), playing 44 of 45 games.

“Listen, if he could play 40 minutes a night, he’d want to be out there,” Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said. “We’ve joked, we’ve had times this year where, whether we’ve gone [with] 11 [forwards] and seven [defensemen], or someone’s gotten injured, or we’re down in a game, and he’s literally playing on two separate lines.

“That’s how good he is. And he wants that too. The guys who get to play on his line want that too. So, it’s been impressive. And he’s been a huge part of why we’re even in the conversation in the standings right now.”

After six straight seasons of making the Stanley Cup Playoffs, including three trips to the Stanley Cup Final and two straight Stanley Cup wins, in 2020 and 2021, Tampa Bay is far from guaranteed to qualify this season. The Lightning are 23-17-5 after a 7-3 win against the Minnesota Wild at Amalie Arena on Thursday. They hold the first wild card into the playoffs from the Eastern Conference but have four teams within three points of them.

And that could be why Kucherov’s season is flying slightly under the radar.

“I think what maybe separates this year a little bit from that MVP season is just we maybe don’t have as deep or as talented a team as we’ve had in the past,” Stamkos said. “And he’s still been able to go out there and produce at a high level, really no matter who he’s been out on the ice with, so that’s what’s impressive.

“That's what separates the elite players in this league is just their ability to do it consistently, no matter the situation.”

On Jan. 4, Kucherov was selected by the NHL to represent the Lightning at the 2024 NHL All-Star Weekend on Feb. 1–3 at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, the fifth time the forward has been given the honor. It’s something recognized by his teammates, both within the Lightning and outside.

“Just unbelievable. Just unbelievable,” said friend and countryman Artemi Panarin, a forward with the New York Rangers. “He’s played like that already before so it doesn’t surprise me. He puts in the work. Hardworking guy and nice to see him play like that. Unbelievable. He’s from Russia so for our hockey it’s a pretty big deal. For our country it’s a big deal.”

And that starts with the work he puts in, all the time, consistently, from the summer to the season and back again.

“Every night he’s pulling something off that, even if I tried for two years, I don’t know if I’d be able to do,” Paul said. “And he makes it look effortless. [It’s] the way he works in the summer. And if you see what he does and then you see him play, it just makes total sense -- the way he cuts up the ice, the way he makes plays, the way he can take any puck off a rim and one-touch it on his backhand through two guys.

“You see it in the highlights once and you’re like, ‘Oh, maybe that’s a fluke.’ But you see it every time he’s on the ice. You’re like, ‘OK, that’s something special.’”

It’s what drives the rest of the team, a team that already knows what it takes, that has already won the Stanley Cup twice.

“Listen, he didn’t come into the League with a huge expectation and fanfare and that,” Stamkos said of the player selected by Tampa Bay in the second round (No. 58) of the 2011 NHL Draft. “It hasn’t been this natural, smooth transition. He worked for it. He had to prove himself. And I think that’s what kind of fuels that hunger a little bit, too.

“He’s had to earn everything he’s got at this level. And then he expects that from everyone else too, and not everyone can give that. And not everyone is willing to put in that work that he does. But that’s the expectation from him, is he wants everyone to work on their game all the time, and that’s contagious in the room.”

It’s that effort and that work and that drive that have turned Kucherov from more of a straightforward offensive player into a dual threat, into the dependable player all over the ice that the Lightning see today.

“He’s really grown into just a 200-foot player,” coach Jon Cooper said. “His compete level is extremely high and it’s hard to explain but, just, watching him play, he’s elevated our team and it’s just been a pleasure to watch. What he’s doing all over the ice compared to 2019, when maybe he was a bit just more of an offensive threat, it’s really impressive.”

Kucherov understands, too, that fair or not, it may be up to him to carry the offense for the Lightning. At least if they want to make the playoffs.

“I shoot from everywhere now,” Kucherov said. “Red line, goal line, power play. It doesn’t matter. Most important thing is to help the team win and make the playoffs. That’s the goal right now.”

And if he can pull that off? Should Kucherov win the Hart Trophy?

“Yeah,” Paul said. “He’s got my vote.”

NHL.com senior writer Dan Rosen and NHL.com independent correspondent Corey Long contributed to this report