Kucherov joins exclusive club with 100th assist in win
Auston Matthews came up empty in his bid to become the ninth player in NHL history to score 70 goals in a season, but Tampa Bay's Nikita Kucherov became the fifth player to have a 100-assist season as the Lightning beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 6-4 on Wednesday night.
Matthews was denied on all seven first-period shots by 29-year-old rookie goalie Matt Tomkins, then rocketed a shot off the post midway through the second period. Tomkins finished with 35 saves, including 12 on Matthews, in his sixth NHL start.
Kucherov, the NHL's scoring leader with 144 points, scored a first-period goal, then set up Brayden Point's power-play goal with 2:55 left in the second for the milestone assist. He reached the mark two days after Edmonton's Connor McDavid did it.
Nicholas Paul and Anthony Duclair each had a goal and an assist, and Tanner Jeannot also scored for Tampa Bay, which ended an 0-2-1 slide.
Ryan Reaves, TJ Brodie, Pontus Holmberg and John Tavares scored, and Martin Jones finished with 26 saves for Toronto.
ISLANDERS 5, PENGUINS 4 » Simon Holmstrom scored the go-ahead goal in the third period, Ilya Sorokin stopped Sidney Crosby on a late penalty shot and New York edged Pittsburgh.
NHL NOT INTERESTED IN EXPANDING PLAYOFFS » Sixteen teams, each one needing to win 16 games over four rounds of best-of-7 series to lift the Stanley Cup, has been the way the NHL decides its champion for nearly four decades. And that isn't changing any time soon.
The NHL is the only one
Nikita Kucherov celebrates with the bench after his goal in the Lightning's win.
of the major four North American professional sports leagues not to expand its playoffs in recent years. It is content with the current format and isn't looking to add more teams, a play-in round or anything else amid plenty of discussion about doing so.
“We're not giving any thought to expanding the playoffs,” Commissioner Gary Bettman. “We have no interest in it. What we have is working very well. When you look at how our playoffs play out, the number of sixand seven-game series, the competitiveness of it, nothing in anybody else's playoffs rivals that.”
ALSO » The Canadiens exercised the two-year option of the contract of coach Martin St. Louis, committing him to the team for the next three seasons. The 48-yearold Hall of Fame player has posted a 75-100-26 record as coach while the Canadiens undergo a rebuild.
The Wild signed future Hall of Fame goalie MarcAndre Fleury to a one-year, $2.5 million contract extension, bringing back the veteran for his age-40 season. Fleury has had a prolific season in which he passed Patrick Roy for second place (561 wins) behind Martin Brodeur (691) on the NHL `s all-time list in career goaltending wins.