This might be sacrilegious to say, but I really like the Tampa Bay Lightning. If there was a team that I’d ditch my local fandom for and jump on their bandwagon, it’s the Bolts. Just a killer hockey team from top to bottom.

They’ve got Brayden Point, Alex Killorn, Victor Hedman, and an elite goaltender in Vasilevskiy, who won the Conn Smythe.  There’s Stamkos, Pat Maroon, Ondrej Palat, etc. They’re ridiculously deep and they just play great hockey. It’s somewhat depressing watching them play after going through this past season of Flyers hockey.

They’ve also got Nikita Kucherov, who didn’t even play in the regular season and came back for the playoffs, which other NHL fans decried as salary cap exploitation, but whatever. If the NHL allowed it, then what is there for us to bitch about it? It is what it is, whether we like it or not.

A shirtless Kucherov went on to give one of the best post game interviews of all time when Tampa wrapped it up last night at home:

Love the dig at the Habs fans there. They lost the series 4-1 and he’s ripping them for celebrating the Game 4 win, when the series was pretty much in the bag for the Bolts. Ruthless. Kucherov is a winner. I’m thinking of buying a Tampa shirt and putting my Flyers gear in the bagster.

As a quick aside, would Kucherov go on your Mount Rushmore of Nikitas? I think so. I’d go Kucherov, Khruschev, La Femme Nikita, and Nikita Krylov, the MMA fighter.