Domestic hockey players became the stars of the day in the NHL championship

Another day of the NHL regular championship was literally triumphant for Russia. Its three main stars were domestic forwards, thanks to whom their teams won victories. The top three were Nikita Kucherov from the Tampa Bay Lightning and Kirill Kaprizov from the Minnesota Wild, who scored two goals each, as well as Kirill Marchenko from the Columbus Blue Jackets, who scored a hat-trick.

This was, of course, a very remarkable case. The NHL has a tradition of identifying the top three stars each day of the regular season. Sometimes the choice turns out to be very limited. But now he was just gorgeous. As many as 11 matches took place in the NHL on Tuesday. Some were extremely entertaining and provided a scattering of bright episodes. But all three “star” slots went to Russian hockey players. And it is unlikely that this is a decision with which it would occur to anyone to argue heatedly.

Well, let’s say, it’s completely obvious why the title of the first star was given to Kirill Marchenko. His Columbus Blue Jackets, part of the group of outsiders of the championship, prevailed over the Buffalo Sabers away – 9:4.

And exactly a third of all Columbus goals were scored by the forward, who only broke into the club’s core during last season and immediately earned a reputation as an excellent sniper. Marchenko’s hat-trick was the second in the NHL, but it has a special flavor. Such hat-tricks are called natural. This is when a hockey player not only shoots three pucks, but shoots them so that there is no one else between them. And what gives Marchenko’s current hat-trick an additional flair is its “rate of fire.” He hit the goal three times in his short eight minutes and seven seconds of playing time, earning heaps of praise from his teammates, including the famous Johnny Gaudreau. After the match, he showered Marchenko with a ton of compliments, calling him “incredibly gifted.”

Presumably, Gaudreau was inspired by them, first of all, by the very first of the Russians’ goals, scored at the end of the starting period. It was the American striker who made the pass to Marchenko on the power play, after which he performed a luxurious and exceptionally complex trick, throwing the puck between his legs with his stick and hitting the goal, essentially with his back to it.

Kirill Marchenko himself, when the match ended, spoke, of course, about how lucky he was with the link. In it, he has been playing with two other Russians for some time – Egor Chinakhov and Dmitry Voronkov, and the trio usually looks quite sharp.

Recognized as second star Kirill Kaprizovand the reason for recognition was his exploits in a match in which the Minnesota Wild, whose position was little better than that of Columbus, won an extremely valuable victory, at least from the point of view of psychological tone.

She defeated the Boston Bruins on a foreign court – 4:3 in overtime. And Boston was at the top of the Eastern Conference table.

Kirill Kaprizov, the undisputed leader of Minnesota, its, in fact, its main hope, had not scored a goal in six matches before. By his standards, this is a gigantic series. And here – two at once. Kaprizov finished off the second of them in overtime for Boston.

Finally, two goals could not be ignored Nikita Kucherov.

His double took place in Tampa’s home match, in which it beat the St. Louis Blues 6:1, slightly improving the still shaky tournament situation: the team in the East is somehow clinging to the playoff zone, everything time at the risk of flying out of it.

But Nikita Kucherov personally is doing great. In the current championship, he continues to perform effective actions with such a frequency that no one else is capable of. The Russian striker already has 54 points (with 22 goals) in 32 matches, and he leads the scoring race with a decent margin. The closest pursuer, Nathan MacKinnon from the Colorado Avalanche, is six points behind.

Alexey Dospehov