The Backcheck: Trip ends with a Kucherov hat trick & a win over the Flyers

Behind a hat trick and four-point night from All-Star winger Nikita Kucherov, the Tampa Bay Lightning wrapped up its three-game road trip with a 6-3 win over the Philadelphia Flyers Tuesday night at Wells Fargo Center.

After falling to the Detroit Red Wings on Sunday, the Lightning wanted to have a better start in Philadelphia and got on the board just 1:46 into the contest with Brayden Point netting his 22^nd goal of the season.

Positioning himself to the right of Samuel Ersson, Point redirected a heavy shot from the point off the stick of Max Crozier to give the Bolts the early 1-0 lead. With the lone assist on the goal, Crozier picked up his first career NHL point.

Kucherov continued his incredible season and gave Tampa Bay a 2-0 lead with 1:15 remaining in the opening frame. Just after a Lightning power play expired, Kucherov moved to the right circle and took a beautiful cross-zone pass from Brandon Hagel before wiring a one-timer into the top right corner with Darren Raddysh picking up the secondary assist.

Just 2:24 into the second period, Kucherov picked up right where he left off, scoring a power-play goal for his 30^th goal of the campaign and 300^th career power-play point.

After Steven Stamkos won a loose puck and sent a pass to Point at the left circle, Kucherov crept out from behind the net and found himself all alone on the back door. Point quickly sent the puck towards Kucherov, who corralled the pass off his right skate and fired a shot past Ersson to make it a 3-0 game with his second goal of the night.

Despite being in a three-goal hole, the Flyers never showed signs of quitting and responded with back-to-back goals from Cam Atkinson and Jamie Drysdale at the 9:56 and 14:04 marks of the second period to make it a 3-2 game.

But every time Philadelphia got close to tying the contest, the Lightning had an answer. The first came off the stick of Mikey Eyssimont, who lit the lamp for the eighth time this season with 2:18 remaining in the middle frame to push Tampa Bay’s lead to 4-2.

With the Bolts back on the power play, Victor Hedman hammered a slap shot from the point that caromed off the back boards and sharply came out to Kucherov, who immediately feathered a one-touch pass right through the legs of Sean Couturier and onto the tape of Eyssimont, who one-timed the puck past Ersson to send the Lightning to the locker room with a multi-goal lead after 40 minutes.

Only 42 seconds into the third period, the Flyers got back within one when Cam York ripped a shot towards Andrei Vasilevskiy that was blocked by Nick Perbix and flew up into the air. Tracking the rebound, York was able to bat the puck out of midair on his backhand and into the back of the net to make it a 4-3 game.

As Philadelphia continued to push for the game-tying goal, Ersson made his way to the bench for an extra attacker with 2:42 left in regulation.

Committed to defending until the final horn, the Lightning got the insurance goal it was looking for with Hagel finding the empty net with 59.7 seconds remaining to push the lead to 5-3. Then, with 10.1 seconds left, Anthony Cirelli found Kucherov, who flew down the ice and added another empty-net goal to complete his fifth career hat trick and seal the win.

Vasilevskiy made 29 saves on 32 shots against to improve to 14-10-0 on the season. He’s 5-1-0 over his last six games.

Bolts by the Numbers

• Nikita Kucherov recorded his fifth career hat trick and added one assist for his fourth game with four or more points this season.
• Kucherov has recorded four or more points in four road games this season. It's the second time in his career he's had four or more four-point games on the road in a single season (also: 5 in 2018-19). Kucherov is one of just seven players in NHL history to achieve the feat multiple times, joining Wayne Gretzky (9x), Mario Lemieux (6x), Peter Stastny (4x), Steve Yzerman (2x), Phil Esposito (2x) and Dale Hawerchuk (2x).
• Kucherov became the first player in the NHL to hit 80 points this season (31-49—80) and surpassed his goal total from the 2022-23 season (30). Only three active NHL players have hit the 80-point mark in 47 games or fewer - Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid and Kucherov.
• Kucherov’s recorded his 300^th and 301^st career power-play points to become the third player in Lightning franchise history to hit the milestone (also: Steven Stamkos, 409; Martin St. Louis, 300).
• Kucherov recorded a single-season career-high ninth multi-goal game, good for the second-most among all NHL skaters, trailing only Auston Matthews (12).
• Kucherov logged one goal and one assist in the second period for his 110^th career multi- point period, surpassing Martin St. Louis (109) and taking sole possession of the second-most in Lightning franchise history.
• Kucherov (2-1—3) has recorded 12 three-point games this season, the most among all NHL skaters.
• Kucherov (3-1—4) logged the 25^th four-point game of his career and fourth of the season, tied for the fifth-most among active NHL players. Only Sidney Crosby (38), Connor McDavid (35), Alex Ovechkin (32), Evgeni Malkin (29) have more, while Leon Draisaitl also has 25.
• Brayden Point scored his 22^nd goal of the season and added his 28^th helper of the year for his 12^th multi-point game of the season. Point has scored five game-opening goals this season, tied for the seventh-most in the NHL. Point has found the scoresheet in five of his last six games (3-5—8) and eight of his last 11 contests (6-6—12).
• Max Crozier tallied his first career NHL point in his fifth career game with the lone assist on Point’s game-opening goal.

Bolts Quotes

• Max Crozier on his first NHL point: “It’s pretty special. There’s a lot of future Hall of Famers in this locker room, so to be in their presence is pretty special. I’m just happy to be here. I’m really grateful for the opportunity and I’m just trying to get better every day.”
• Jon Cooper on Nikita Kucherov: “He’s a pleasure to watch every night. He is definitely worth the price of admission…Fabulous player. Unique. Elite. I don’t even know what else to say about him. I’m running out of words.”
• Mikey Eyssimont on Kucherov: “He's incredible. He's super fun to watch. I think a lot of us are a lot better players because of him, not just because he passes us the puck and we score, but just in practice and stuff. Just watching him and being this close to him, for me, it really helps my game.”
• Cooper on Crozier: “He’s getting more and more confident the more games he plays. He’s got poise. It was a heck of a play he made on that goal to get that by some shin pads…There’s a correlation between the winning we’ve done lately and some of these new kids back on the back end and he’s one of them.”

Krenner’s Three Stars

1. Nikita Kucherov
2. Brayden Point
3. Max Crozier

Lightning Look Ahead

• Thursday, January 25 vs. Arizona Coyotes, 7 p.m. ET, AMALIE Arena - Buy Tickets
• Saturday, January 27 vs. New Jersey Devils, 7 p.m. ET, AMALIE Arena - Buy Tickets
• Wednesday, February 7 at New York Rangers, 7 p.m. ET, Madison Square Garden