TAMPA, Fla. _ Lightning coach Jon Cooper refers to the players who pull fans out of their seats. There are players who make fans stand up in anticipation of what they might do, but not many of them.
Nikita Kucherov is one of them.
On Thursday, on the way to the Lightning's 2-1 shootout win over the Buffalo Sabres, he and Tyler Johnson had a two-on-one and it had the feeling of something big. The pair left two Sabres laid out on the ice and Kucherov's 100th point in the net.
Rasmus Dahlin dove to block the shooting lane and Jeff Skinner laid out, trying to catch up to the passing lane. Both missed. Johnson slid the puck under Dahlin's feet and in front of Skinner's stick, to a wide open Kucherov. The NHL's leading scorer fired the one-timer on net.
Point No. 100. Goal No. 30.
With that, Kucherov became the fastest Lightning player ever to reach 100 points, and the first to do so twice.
Vinny Lecavalier was the previous fastest to 100 points, in 78 games in 2005-06. No NHL player has gotten there in 62 games or fewer since Mario Lemieux (44) and Jaromir Jagr (52) both did so in 1995-96.
Kucherov's score evened the game at 1 after Dahlin gave the Sabres a 1-0 lead with a goal at the 18:13 mark of the first period.
"There's not a lot of secrets in this league," Cooper said. "You see the way players are out against him every single night. He's always facing the best D. Kuch is on the map in this league and now he's separated himself as one of the elite players in the best league in the world and fun to watch."
