The regular season of the National Hockey League (NHL) has come to an end end, and with it one of the main intrigues of the entire championship. Nikita Kucherov officially became the owner of the Art Ross Trophy.
The Russian forward for Tampa Bay Lightning had a phenomenal regular season. In 81 championship games, Kuch scored 144 points, scored 44 goals, made 100 assists and participated in more than half of the Lightning's goals this season, and rewrote a lot of historical records. Here are just a few of them:
- record for points in a single NHL season among Russian players;
- record for assists for the season among Russians and Europeans;
- club record for points and assists for the season;
- NHL record for assists in a season among wingers.
And although Nikita himself, in dialogue with the media, always notes that individual achievements against the backdrop of team achievements do not matter to him at all, the scoring race with the participation of the Russian and the Canadian super forward of the Colorado Avalanche Nathan MacKinnon additionally motivated Kucherov and helped him maintain his goal from the very start of the season crazy pace. Together with MacKinnon, Kuch was practically neck and neck throughout the championship. Several times the opponents replaced each other in the leadership position, but most of the time it was the Tampa forward who held the first place.
Closer to the final part of the regular season, another star Canadian, Connor McDavid, competed with Kucherov and MacKinnon. The captain of the Edmonton Oilers stalled at the start of the tournament due to health problems, but subsequently reduced the gap to a minimum and almost deprived his opponents of their ambitions to win. For some time Makdi even led the race, but was promptly sent to third place. All three put up phenomenal performance numbers. 31 years later, for the first time, three hockey players broke the 130-point mark in a season. In the final match of the championship, MacKinnon completely repeated Kucherov’s achievement, scoring a historic 140 points, but was unable to win back the Russian’s huge lead.
The final position of the scorers standings turned out to be as follows:
- Nikita Kucherov – 144 points (44+100)
- Nathan MacKinnon – 140 (51+89)
- Connor McDavid – 132 (32+100)
For Nikita Kucherov, the Art Ross won this season Trophy” became the second in his career. For the first time, a Russian received the prize for the best scorer of the regular season in the 2018/19 season, when he scored 128 points in 82 games and set a scoring record among hockey players from Russia. This year, Kuch rewrote his own record with a margin and became only the second Russian player who managed to take the Art Ross Trophy more than once. Evgeni Malkin was the first to achieve this achievement: the Pittsburgh Penguins legend was the best in the 2008/09 and 2011/12 seasons. Once again, the prize for the most productive player of the season went to Alexander Ovechkin (2007/08 season).
A truly historic season for Nikita Kucherov. Five years ago, along with the Art Ross Trophy, the Russian also took home the Hart Trophy. This time history should repeat itself. The prize for the most valuable player of the season should be in the hands of the Russian super forward.
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