Season Review #10: Tampa Bay Lightning - Kucherov 130 Points, Vasilevskiy a Vezina Finalist, 50 Wins, Four Consecutive First-Round Exits, and the Game 7 Stat That Makes No Sense

Nikita Kucherov scored 130 points. Andrei Vasilevskiy won 34 games and was a Vezina Trophy finalist. Tampa Bay won 50 games and finished second in the Atlantic. In Game 7 against Montreal they held the Canadiens to nine shots on goal, outshot them 29-9, and lost 2-1 on two deflection goals. It was the fourth consecutive season they lost in the first round. Kucherov had zero points in Games 5, 6, and 7. He has never scored a point in any Game 7 of his career. This is the most confounding individual stat in modern playoff hockey.

By Mike Holloway · June 2026 · 2025–26 Season Review Series · #10 of 32 · Playoff Teams

In the second period of Game 7 against the Montreal Canadiens, the Tampa Bay Lightning held their opponent without a single shot on goal. Not one. For an entire period. In a winner-take-all game with their season ending if they lost. The Lightning finished that period ahead 12-0 in shots and tied 1-1 on a Dominic James power-play tip. They outshot Montreal 29-9 over the full 60 minutes. They were the better team for nearly the entire night by every measurable standard. They lost 2-1 on two goals that both bounced off Lightning defenders - pucks that went where Andrei Vasilevskiy could not anticipate them going - and the 2025-26 season was over.

It was the fourth consecutive year that Tampa Bay lost in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. They have not won a playoff series since 2022. They had 50 wins and 106 points and Nikita Kucherov scored 130 of them. None of it was enough.

Nikita Kucherov has scored 130 points this season. He has scored 1,124 career points across 879 games. He has never recorded a point in any Game 7 of his career - not one, across every high-stakes seventh game of his decade-plus of NHL playoff hockey. In this series against Montreal, he had points in the first four games, then went completely silent in Games 5, 6, and 7.

The combination of individual brilliance and specific situational failure - elite point-per-game regular-season player, absolute zero in every decisive playoff seventh game ever played - is one of the most genuinely confounding individual statistical portraits in modern NHL history. His 130 points are the third-best total in the Eastern Conference this season. His career Game 7 total is zero. Both are true about the same player. The sport rewards strange things with its hardest numbers.

MTL

4

Stanley Cup Playoffs · Round 1 · 7 Games

vs

TBL

3

Montreal Canadiens def. Tampa Bay Lightning 4-3 · Outshot 29-9 in Game 7, lost 2-1

Round 1 - Game 1 · Benchmark International Arena, Tampa

TBL

W–L

MTL

Hagel began his six-goal run in the first four games. Kucherov productive. Home ice mattered early and Tampa took the opening game in front of the building that had, in the dynasty years, been an extension of the team itself.

The series opened the way the regular season had concluded: with the Lightning looking like the deeper, more dangerous team and Vasilevskiy controlling his crease. Nothing about Game 1 suggested the season was three weeks from ending.

Key Moment

Hagel's first goal of the series. The line of Hagel-Kucherov-Point looked like the difference-maker the Lightning needed.

Round 1 - Game 2 · Benchmark International Arena, Tampa

MTL

W–L

TBL

Jakub Dobes, 24 years old, began the series run that would define his postseason. Montreal's pace tested Tampa's structure and tied the series before the teams left Florida.

The first warning sign for the Lightning was less about how they played than about who responded. Dobes was already showing the composure that would, by Game 7, become the most consequential individual story for the opposing roster.

Key Moment

Dobes's Game 2 performance - the moment the goaltending matchup stopped favouring Tampa as obviously as it should have.

Round 1 - Game 3 · Bell Centre, Montreal

TBL

W–L

MTL

Lightning regained the series lead. Hagel still producing. The Hagel-Kucherov-Point line was driving Montreal's defensive matchups into uncomfortable positions and the secondary scoring was contributing.

The series was competitive in the way an even matchup should be. Three games, three results, three different storylines. Tampa was the heavier team. Montreal was the faster team. Both were holding.

Key Moment

Hagel's continued scoring - now four goals in three games - as the indication that Tampa's top six was producing at the rate the regular season had promised.

Round 1 - Game 4 · Bell Centre, Montreal

MTL

W–L

TBL

Series tied 2-2. This was Kucherov's last productive game of the series. Everything that followed was the absence of what had been there for four games and would not return for three.

The shift that defined the series began here. The Hagel run ended at six goals. Kucherov's contribution ended after Game 4. Point's already-thin output got thinner. The core that needed to drive the series did the opposite for the rest of it.

Key Moment

Kucherov's last point of the playoffs. He would not register another across the final three games.

Round 1 - Game 5 · Benchmark International Arena, Tampa

MTL

W–L

TBL

Kucherov went scoreless. Hagel dropped off. Montreal took a 3-2 series lead with a road win in a building that, since 2022, has been more often where Tampa's seasons end than where their championships are extended.

The home ice problem the franchise had carefully tried not to discuss for three previous Aprils became, in Game 5, undeniable. Tampa was 1-9 in their previous nine home playoff games before puck drop. They were 1-10 after it.

Key Moment

The home playoff record - 1-10 over the most recent stretch - reaching the point where it could no longer be filed under variance.

Round 1 - Game 6 · Bell Centre, Montreal

TBL

W–L

MTL

Forced Game 7 at home. Must-win delivered. Vasilevskiy sharp. The Lightning had won an elimination game on the road, which is the kind of result that historically precedes a Game 7 win. It did not.

The brief reprieve produced by Game 6 was the kind of win that lets a fan base believe the older version of the team has remembered what it knows. The next three days would prove the opposite.

Key Moment

Vasilevskiy's road performance in Game 6 - the goaltender holding up his end while the rest of the team did just enough.

Round 1 - Game 7 · Benchmark International Arena, Tampa · ELIMINATION

MTL

2–1

TBL

Outshot Montreal 29-9. Held the Canadiens to zero shots on goal in the entire second period - the first time in NHL history a team accomplished that in any period of a Game 7. Led for long stretches. Lost on two deflection goals off Lightning defenders. Vasilevskiy made 27 saves. Dobes made 28.

"From start to finish we stuck with our process and our plan, and in the end it doesn't matter because they had two, we had one, so it's a loss," Ryan McDonagh said afterward. The shot chart said Tampa was the better team. The scoreboard said Montreal won. Both were true. Only one mattered.

Key Moment

The second period - 12-0 in shots, zero shots allowed, the most one-sided period in any Game 7 in NHL history - producing one Lightning goal and ending tied 1-1. A team that dominates a period that completely should not lose the game. The Lightning did.

The Game 7 result is the most statistically one-sided defeat in recent playoff history. Tampa outshot Montreal 29-9. The Lightning held the Canadiens without a single shot on goal in the entire second period - the first time in NHL history a team accomplished that in any period of a Game 7. Vasilevskiy allowed two goals, both on deflections by Lightning defenders, both impossible to anticipate. Jakub Dobes, 24, stopped 28 of 29 and finished the series with a 2.03 GAA and a .923 SV%. Kucherov, Point, Hagel, and Guentzel were held to two combined points in the final three games. Point scored one goal in seven games total. Hagel, who scored six in the first four, had one assist in the last three.

2025–26 Individual Season Grades

130 pts (44G–86A) · 1,124 career points · dominant regular season · 0 pts in G5-G7 · 0 career Game 7 points

The grade is for the regular season - 130 points is one of the Eastern Conference's best individual campaigns of the year, and the 44-goal, 86-assist combination reflects a player operating at or near the peak of his offensive abilities twelve years into his career. The Game 7 paradox - zero points in every winner-take-all game of his career - is the specific individual statistical result that the grade cannot ignore but also cannot be the only lens through which the season is evaluated. He is one of the five best forwards in the NHL. In this season he played like it for six months. The last three games are the deduction.

34W · 2.33 GAA · Vezina Trophy finalist · outplayed only by Dobes in a series decided by deflections

His Vezina Trophy nomination is the honest assessment of his regular season - 34 wins, 2.33 GAA, one of three finalists for the sport's top goaltending honour. His playoff performance (2.18 GAA, .897 SV%) was competitive against a Montreal team whose goaltender played the best games of his young career. The two Game 7 goals he allowed came off Lightning defenders' legs and were genuinely unpreventable. He was not the reason the Lightning lost. The A-minus acknowledges the full body of work from the regular season forward.

6 goals in first 4 playoff games · 1 assist in final 3 · Kucherov's most reliable playoff linemate when on

The most extreme individual split in the series. Six goals in four games is one of the great individual playoff scoring starts of the season. One assist in three games to close is one of the steepest individual collapses. The grade for the combined season - including a strong regular season - reflects genuine value. The Game 5-7 disappearance is the portion of the grade that costs him a B-plus. What he did in Games 1 through 4 is not negated by what followed; it is complicated by it.

+43 (team co-leader) · elite defensive anchor · franchise captain navigating the dynasty's difficult autumn

Hedman's +43 was the team's best individual plus-minus and reflects a defensive game that remains among the top five in the Eastern Conference for a defenceman at 35. His leadership through four consecutive first-round exits - never blaming teammates, always representing the franchise with dignity - is the character contribution that doesn't appear in statistics. "I don't really have words," he said after Game 7. For a captain who has already said all the words he could say across four consecutive exits, that sentence was the only honest one available.

+43 (team co-leader) · alternate captain · veteran leadership through the franchise's most difficult period

McDonagh's +43 co-led the team with Hedman - a remarkable defensive campaign from a veteran whose offensive production has declined with age but whose positional play remains elite. His post-Game 7 comments - "From start to finish we stuck with our process and our plan, and in the end it doesn't matter because they had two, we had one, so it's a loss" - were the most honest possible assessment of the most cruel possible result. He played well enough to win the series. His team did not win the series.

1 goal in 7 playoff games · produced at pace in regular season · core forward who went missing when it mattered

Point is one of the better centres in the NHL when at his best - a consistent 40-goal scorer in seasons where he's been healthy and deployed correctly. His single goal across seven playoff games against Montreal is the same failure that Kucherov's Games 5-7 produced: the core forwards shut down when the series became decisive. He is 30. Four consecutive first-round exits means four consecutive playoff disappointments from the player the team most needs in crucial moments.

Part of the core that went cold in G5-G7 · 2 combined points across the final three games

Guentzel was brought to Tampa to produce in exactly the kind of series the Lightning lost. The regular season was solid. The final three games were not. He is the most replaceable of the four top-six forwards listed here - and the one whose contract and age profile make the offseason conversation about Tampa's core most uncomfortable.

The question the franchise cannot avoid after a fourth consecutive first-round exit is the same question it could have avoided for the first two and the third but cannot avoid after the fourth: is this core capable of winning a playoff series? The answer is not obviously no. They had Kucherov for 130 regular-season points. They had Vasilevskiy as a Vezina finalist. They had a 50-win team with a genuine defensive structure. They lost Game 7 despite outplaying their opponent by nearly every objective measure. The exit was cruel. The cruelty does not change the count.

The home playoff record - 2-12 in the last 14 home playoff games - is the most uncomfortable data point in the franchise's recent history. It is also one of the most inexplicable. The same arena where they won two championships is the arena where they have been eliminated four times in five years. Whether the cause is psychological, structural, or simply the mathematics of a team that peaked in 2020-21 and has been competing against that legacy ever since, the pattern demands an honest organisational response. Jon Cooper - who produced those championships - is still the coach. Julien BriseBois - who constructed the roster - is still the GM. The dynasty's architects must now diagnose why the dynasty's remnants keep failing in the same building where the dynasty was built.

The Tampa Bay Lightning won 50 games. They had the third-best record in the Eastern Conference. They had the Vezina Trophy finalist in goal and the third-highest scorer in the conference at forward. They were the better team in Game 7 by every objective measure available. They lost the series 4-3. They lost the season in the first round for the fourth consecutive year. Nikita Kucherov has never scored a point in any Game 7 of his career. The next chapter of this franchise will be defined by whether that sentence, and the home playoff record that surrounds it, can be answered with anything other than the same April.