{"id":4299,"date":"2016-12-18T17:45:37","date_gmt":"2016-12-18T22:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/?p=4299"},"modified":"2016-12-18T18:00:19","modified_gmt":"2016-12-18T23:00:19","slug":"nikita-kucherov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2016\/12\/18\/nikita-kucherov\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikita Kucherov Placed on Injured Reserve"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <strong>Tampa Bay Lightning<\/strong> have been without leading scorer <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kucheni01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nikita Kucherov<\/a><\/strong> for the past three games and may be without him for a few more contests due to a lower-body injury.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Kucherov not listed among the scratches, so he&#8217;s been place on IR, but will be eligible to come back before Tuesday&#8217;s game vs Det<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Erik Erlendsson (@Erik_Erlendsson) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Erik_Erlendsson\/status\/810319518404907010\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 18, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Nikita Kucherov Placed on Injured Reserve<\/h3>\n<p>The injury occurred some time during last Saturday&#8217;s 4-3 loss to the <strong>Pittsburgh Penguins<\/strong> and the team has gone 1-1-1 in his absence, with call-up <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/c\/conacco01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cory Conacher<\/a><\/strong> netting a goal, assist, and six shots in the span he has been out.<\/p>\n<p>To say Kucherov has been important to the Lightning this season has been an understatement. With <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/stamkst01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Steven Stamkos<\/a> out since November 15th with a knee injury that will force him to miss multiple months, the 23-year old winger has 13 goals and 30 points to lead the team and place 4th in the <strong>NHL<\/strong> in points at the time of his injury. His three game winners, ten power play points, and 84 shots also have paced the Lightning. The team currently ranks 4th in the wide open <strong>Atlantic Division<\/strong> with a 15-14-3 record, two points out of third behind the <strong>Boston Bruins<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Cooper has stressed the importance of different players stepping up in not only Kucherov&#8217;s absence, but also for <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/p\/palaton01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ondrej Palat<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/c\/callary01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ryan Callahan<\/a><\/strong> who have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tampabay.com\/sports\/hockey\/lightning\/lightnings-kucherov-palat-expected-out-through-weekend\/2306643\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">also missed recent time<\/a> with setbacks of their own.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s been an unfortunate run of late with all the injuries. If there&#8217;s ever a time for guys to step up, it&#8217;s right now.&#8221;<br \/>\n-Jon Cooper, Tampa Bay Lightning Head Coach<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Kucherov has had a remarkable start to his 239-game NHL career in the regular season and in the postseason through two full campaigns, being a regular contributor for head coach <strong>Jon Cooper<\/strong>. He&#8217;s scored 29 goals and 65 points along with 30 markers and 66 points respectively each of the past two seasons. His 22 goals and 42 points in 45 career playoff games helped the Lightning advance to the <strong>Stanley Cup Final<\/strong> in 2015 and Game 7 of the <strong>Eastern Conference Final<\/strong> in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Quote courtesy of Tampa Bay Times.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/620151398\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 69.865320% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/620151398?et=nSLH9YQcRWNnpZzzw2sOew&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=oTLDhTEQU6j2RPBBWZ9vKaxP4NJiD7SdGOXW4qPW9VQ=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"415\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Tampa Bay Lightning have been without leading scorer Nikita Kucherov for the past three games and may be without him for a few more contests due to a lower-body injury. Kucherov not listed among the scratches, so he&#8217;s been place on IR, but will be eligible to come back before Tuesday&#8217;s game vs Det [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":546,"featured_media":4306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34,9],"tags":[1033,1032,583,1030,44,1031,395,42],"class_list":["post-4299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-lightning","tag-cory-conacher","tag-jon-cooper","tag-nikita-kucherov","tag-ondrej-palat","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-ryan-callahan","tag-steven-stamkos","tag-tampa-bay-lightning"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/546"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}