The individual awards keep rolling in for the Tampa Bay Lightning. After Jon Cooper nabbed his first Jack Adams and Andrei Vasilevskiy was awarded his second Vezina Trophy, Nikita Kucherov became the Lightning’s first multi-Hart Trophy winner as he bested Connor McDavid by ten points in the overall voting.
Really wonder who gave McDavid those two fifth-place votes. Depending on how their ballot looked, that might have been the difference. In the end, Kucherov nabbed enough votes to pick up the victory becoming just the fifth winger to win more than one Hart Trophy.
Kucherov posted 130 points (44 goals, 86 assists) besting the next closest member of the team, Jake Guentzel, by 42 points. He led the team in goals, assists, even-strength goals, even-strength points, power play points, and game-winning goals. He even tossed in the first short-handed goal of his career for fun.
While McDavid outpointed him, Kucherov did have the higher point-per-game average. That was even more noticeable in the Lightning’s wins. He played in 48 of their 50 victories, posting 102 points (32 goals, 70 assists) for a 2.13 PPG. Meanwhile in the 23 losses he played in, he averaged 0.91 PPG (11 goals, 10 assists). As one might assume, his best stretch came from December to February when the Lightning couldn’t seemingly lose. From December 20th to February 25th he put up 52 points (17 goals, 35 assists) in 22 games. McDavid was next with 40 points in 24 games over that same stretch.
It’s not bad timing for the 32-year-old as he is able to sign an extension in less than a month. His current 8-year, $76 million deal runs through next season. It sounds like some very, very preliminary conversations took place before the season ended abruptly in early May,
“In due time, we will engage with his agent,” [Julien] BriseBois said. “We’ve already had some conversations. He wants to stay, and we’d like him to stay. When we have something to announce, we’ll make an announcement.”
A second MVP trophy is a nice bargaining chip to have as those conversations continue.
Kucherov was awarded the trophy, where else, at the arena.
