Wonder where he’s coming from with this?

The Lightning survived one of their toughest road trips of the season this past week, finishing with a 1-1-1 record. They scored plenty of goals, and Kucherov became the franchise’s all-time points leader. But the Lightning struggled defensively, and they sustained several injuries along the way. All things considered, Jon Cooper was content with the team’s performance:

“These are three playoffs teams, a lot of them Stanley Cup contenders…would’ve loved to get one more tonight…but getting three [points], we’ll take it. Ya know, it’s the back-to-back, the altitude, there’s a whole bunch of things that went into it. But, I thought it was a pretty gutsy effort overall.”
- Jon Cooper after losing to Utah in overtime

One clear positive from this week’s performance is the increased production from the power play. Coming into the week, the Lightning had only scored three power play goals off twenty-eight power play chances—just 10.7%, good for 31st in the NHL. This week, they doubled their season total, scoring three goals with the man-advantage, one in each game. Now, their season’s PP% is up to 15%, good for 26th in the NHL.

It’s not perfect, but it’s certainly improved. If you watched the games, the difference wasn’t hard to notice. The Lightning tried several different looks, moving players to new spots & even swapping some players on-and-off the top unit. The stats back up that claim, too: the Lightning generated at least 3 high-danger scoring chances on the power play in each game.

Of course, there’s much more to unpack. You can find it all below [this is just a sneak peak...to actually find it all, just click the link to view full newsletter]!

Newsletter link: click here.

Team Statistics From This Past Week:

Power Play: 25% (15th)
Penalty Kill: 80% (t-15th)
FOW%: 51% (t-14th)
SF/GP: 29.0 (t-12th)
SA/GP: 28.7 (17th)
GF/GP: 4.33 (t-5th)
GA/GP: 4.33 (t-27th)
Hits/60: 21.79 (18th)
Blocked Shots/60: 12.54 (18th)

Season Rankings:

Power Play: 15% (26th)
Penalty Kill: 76.7% (19th)
FOW%: 48.5% (23rd)
SF/GP: 30.4 (t-4th)
SA/GP: 24.5 (6th)
GF/GP: 3.45 (9th)
GA/GP: 3.09 (15th)
Hits/60: 22.14 (17th)
Blocked Shots/60: 13.83 (19th)

Random Findings:

Nikita Kucherov recorded three points on Tuesday night against the Vegas Golden Knights. He has recorded a point in all 15 career games against the Golden Knights; the only other active player to record a point streak of that length against a single franchise from the start of their career is Connor McDavid (17 GP vs. NJD from 2015-16 to 2025-26). The only players in NHL history to record a point in every game in their career against an opponent (min. 15 GP) are Mario Lemieux (26 GP vs. CGY) and Tomas Sandstrom (17 GP vs. TBL).

On Saturday against Utah, Brayden Point tied Vincent Lecavalier (112) for the second-most power-play goals in Lightning history, behind Steven Stamkos (214). He also passed Brad Richards (213 PPPs) for the sixth-most power-play points in franchise history.

Nikita Kucherov is one of eleven players born outside of North America to hold a franchise’s lead in points. The only other active players are Aleksander Barkov, Alex Ovechkin, and Roman Josi.

Nikita Kucherov is the 5th Lightning player to hold the franchise’s lead in points. The four players before him were: Steven Stamkos (took lead on 4.21.2022), Martin St. Louis (3.7.2013), Vincent Lecavalier (2.14.2004), and Brian Bradley (11.19.1992).

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Sharing the latest Icethetics video, time stamped to the Lightning info. Nothing crazy new here, but if you don't keep up with his channel you might learn something new. Good to support a high-effort creator though, and a fellow Bolts fan! Has some decent tidbits on some other teams if you watch the whole video.

I really hope we aren’t this dumb …