MVP frontrunner Nikita Kucherov is on pace for a historic season

Nikita Kucherov is an easy MVP candidate, as the best player on the NHL’s best team, but he’s also putting up points at a historic pace.

After a 6-0 domination of the Dallas Stars Thursday night, the Tampa Bay Lightning have an NHL-high 90 points as the next nearest teams sit at 75 points. Winger Nikita Kucherov had four points in the game, pushing his point total to 92 (26 goals, 66 assists) in 58 games. As the best player on the league’s best team, and with 11 points in his last three games now, Kucherov is at the top of any list of MVP candidates.

As you might expect based on the aforementioned stats, Kucherov has a seven-point lead in the league scoring race thus far. But he’s also putting up points at a pace rarely seen in NHL history.

Heading into Thursday night’s game, Kucherov’s 88 points and 63 assists in 57 games was the 17th time since 1987 (and the second time since 1996) a player had reached those marks at that point in a season. The rest of that list, dating back to 1987? Wayne Gretzky (five times) and Mario Lemieux (four times), followed by one time each for Sidney Crosby, Ron Francis, Pat Lafontaine, Bernie Nicholls, Denis Savard, Adam Oates and Steve Yzerman.

Kucherov’s pace entering Thursday night, before he added four points, had him eclipsing the 90-assist and 125-point plateaus. Since 2000, only Joe Thornton in 2005-06 (125 points, 96 assists) has hit both of those marks in a season. Since 1995, only Thornton, Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr have topped 125 points in a season.

Going further, only 10 players in NHL history have had 90 assists and 125 points in the same season. It’s no surprise Gretzy did it 12 times and Lemieux did it five times himself, with Paul Coffey, Doug Gilmour, Lafontaine, Thornton, Yzerman, Adam Oates, Bobby Orr and Peter Statsny each doing it once apiece.

There are 24 games now left in the regular season for Tampa Bay, so Kucherov needs to average 1.4 points per game from here on out to reach 125. Of those necessary minimum 33 points, at least 24 have to be assists for Kucherov to hit 90 helpers. Based on his current rates to this point in the season, 1.6 points per game and 1.1 assists per game, those numbers are attainable while also carrying little wiggle room.

With 85 and 100 points in the two seasons before this one, with 40 (2016-17) and 39 goals (2017-18), Kucherov has become one of the best players in the NHL. But this year he is in rare air as a point producer, and those who root for historical marks to be set (or at least joined) should be rooting for Kucherov to maintain his current scoring pace.