from John Romano of the Tampa Bay Times,

A funny thing happened on Nikita Kucherov’s way to rescuing the Lightning:

They got worse.

It hasn’t been a dramatic, or calamitous, fall. And I certainly wouldn’t say the fault rests entirely with Kucherov. But you typically expect a positive nudge when your best player returns to the lineup, and we have not seen that often enough with Kucherov.

Tampa Bay’s season can be split almost perfectly in half between games with Kucherov and games without. In 35 games without their star forward, the Lightning have racked up 71.4 percent of their possible points in the standings. In 34 games with Kucherov, the Lightning are at 63.2 percent.

While they were a little wobbly during the two-plus months that Kucherov missed early in the season, the Lightning were at least in first place in the Atlantic Division and challenging for the No. 1 seed on the morning of Jan. 6 when he returned. Today, they are in fourth and seeded No. 7.

So, again, is it fair to point a finger at Kucherov as the source of Tampa Bay’s struggles? Of course not. There are plenty of moving parts on a hockey team, and Kucherov has had moments of sheer brilliance.

But is it fair to suggest Kucherov has not performed to expectations? Oh, heck yeah.

continued