Nikita Kucherov tied the Tampa Bay Lightning’s single-season points record with a pair of assists to lead the team to a 5-2 victory against the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday night.
Kucherov’s two points give him 108 on the season to tie the single-season mark set by Vincent Lecavalier in the 2006-07 season when he finished with 52 goals and 58 assists.
The league-leading Lightning improved to 14-1-2 in the past 17 games.
Steven Stamkos scored his 34th goal of the season and 382nd of his career and is one shy of tying Lecavalier’s career franchise record.
Brayden Point, Adam Erne and Yanni Gourde also scored for Tampa Bay.
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Andrei Vasilevskiy finished with 30 saves for his 10th consecutive victory and improved to 11-0-2 in his past 13 starts.
Blake Wheeler and Jacob Trouba scored for Winnipeg, which fell to 2-3 in the past five games.
Connor Hellebuyck, who briefly left the game after taking Kucherov’s slapshot off the mask, allowed four goals on 36 shots. Laurent Brossoit allowed one goal on the two shots he faced in 3:16 of ice time.
Kucherov tied the mark with a secondary assist on Stamkos’ power-play goal at 14:25 of the second period and the primary assist on Point’s power-play goal at 9:50 of the third period. Kucherov has 77 assists on the season.
READ MORE: Winnipeg Jets’ Adam Lowry suspended 2 games
Gourde scored on a breakaway 1:34 into the game, while Wheeler answered with a power-play goal at 6:31.
Tampa Bay pulled away in the second period with goals from Erne at 8:58 and Stamkos at 14:26.
Cedric Paquette scored his 10th of the season at 4:20 of the third period before Point added his 37th of the season and league-leading 19th on the power play.
Trouba banked a puck off a stanchion for a power-play goal as Vasilevskiy was behind the net at 15:03 of the third.
NOTES
A moment of silence was held before the opening faceoff in honour of Hall of Famer Ted Lindsay, who died on Monday.
Winnipeg Jets player Adam Lowry served the second game of his two-game suspension for a high-sticking incident on March 1. He is eligible to return on Friday at Carolina.
Lightning defenceman Victor Hedman earned his 127th power-play point to pass Dan Boyle for most career power-play points by a defenceman in franchise history.
Erne’s goal was his first since Dec. 29.
Wheeler has six goals during a three-game goal-scoring streak.
Lightning player Ondrej Palat had his 189th career assist to tie Brian Bradley for eighth most in franchise history.
UP NEXT
The Jets will play at Carolina on Friday, while the Lightning are set to host Minnesota on Thursday.
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