How Nikita Kucherov’s record-breaking season was built on muscle memory

Oh, the irony. The man whose brand is about giving the fewest f—s of anyone actually gives the most f—s of anyone.

Not that Nikita Kucherov was about to break character following his Tampa Bay Lightning’s 4-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs Wednesday night. Far from it. Squeezing words out of him was about as easy as coaxing your dog to come back inside at 3:00 a.m. And that was despite the fact Kucherov, after compiling three assists in the win, reached 130 points on the season, breaking his own single-season franchise record of 128, set five years earlier during his MVP campaign of 2018-19.

Was he aware he reached the milestone?

“Obviously I knew,” he deadpanned. “It felt good. It felt even better that we got the ‘W’ today. I’m happy.”

Does he feel the Lightning are looking more comfortable as they close in on an Eastern Conference playoff spot and begin to leave the bubble teams in the dust?

“Sure.”

How about the significance of winning a game against division rival Toronto. Did it feel speci-

“No.”

Sorry, he cut that reporter’s question off. Hey, that’s Kucherov at this stage of his career. He’s a future Hall of Famer, a two-time Stanley Cup champion, a Hart Trophy winner, an Art Ross Trophy winner, a two-time playoff scoring leader. By 30, he cares little about diplomacy. Not even when he’s enjoying a year that would have most mortals smiling ear to ear. His 130 points are currently the second-most of any player during a salary-cap era season, and he has seven more games to add to the total.

But don’t let the persona fool you. The stone-faced Kucherov, who earned himself boos for his lackadaisical body language during the 2024 All-Star Skills competition in Toronto, is having the season he is specifically because, as coach Jon Cooper said Wednesday, “you can’t be that way unless you have an eternal drive.”

Nothing epitomizes Kucherov’s game, and how it drops the jaws even of his own teammates, like his assist on Brayden Point’s goal in the second period Wednesday night. After Anthony Duclair rimmed the puck behind Toronto’s goal, Kucherov corralled it, kissed it with the blade of his stick and deposited it on Point’s stick in half a second at most. It was a highlight-reel setup, yet it was second nature, pretty much muscle memory, for Kucherov.

It wasn’t surprising to anyone who understands the preparation required to perfect puck skills like his.

“Anyone else? Yeah. Him, no,” said Lightning center Nick Paul. “You watch his summer drills. He takes hundreds and hundreds of pucks off the boards every single day. It’s a second nature to him. Literally, if it’s rimmed, he can just close his eyes, hear it coming and still make the play. He’s that good at it. In the game where controlling the puck is huge and it buys you time instead of following pucks off the boards, he’s got full control, eyes up, and now he can make a play with space.”

“Repetition, repetition, repetition, that’s what he does,” said left winger Brandon Hagel. “That’s why he makes those plays. As the puck’s getting rimmed around, just get open, because I’m sure he sees you, and he can just pick that thing off the wall like nobody else.”

As Hagel explained Wednesday, Kucherov takes just one week off in the summer. Days after his season ends, be it a Stanley Cup year or a first-round exit, Kucherov is on the ice, repeating the same movements, making all those trademark one-touch passes feel as automatic as putting his pants on in the morning.

It explains why he’s been able to maintain such an elite standard for the majority of his career, topping 100 points or scoring at a 100-point pace or better in six consecutive seasons. It also explains why he holds himself to such a high standard that he doesn’t even believe he’s playing at his peak level, not even after literally setting a career single-season high.

“No. I think I still can be a lot better,” he said. “And a lot of guys in this room can be a lot better, and hopefully we will be better.”

In the team context, Kucherov is right. The Bolts haven’t played at the dynastic level they established when they reached three consecutive Stanley Cup Finals between 2019-20 and 2021-22. They have the NHL’s 18th-best expected goal differential at 5-on-5. They aren’t the lockdown defensive unit they used to be. But they still have their engine in Kucherov, who has helped them maintain the No. 1 power play in the NHL. He outscored his closest teammate by 47 points.

When it comes time to cast Hart Trophy ballots in a couple weeks, a crucial question to ask is: where the hell would the 2023-24 Lightning be without this guy? In their garages polishing their golf clubs.