Kucherov Puffs Up Against Dobes: Why I Can’t Stand His Act
The Montreal Canadiens came back in overtime to beat the Tampa Bay Lightning by a score of 3 to 2. As far as I'm concerned, that's poetic justice. Because, as I'll say soon, the kind of activity that Tampa Bay was inflicting on the Canadiens was barely tolerable.
I’ll say it straight: Nikita Kucherov can play. I won’t argue that. The guy sees the ice, makes plays, and can make you feel inferior just watching him handle a puck. But there’s a big difference between elite skill and the little theatrics and skirting-the-line stuff that make you want to throw your radio across the room.
The Kucherov puffed-up moment was embarrassing.
Take the Dobes moment. Hagel scores, and Kucherov saunters over and blatantly shoves his face into a kid’s — not a tap, not a chirp, but that smug, deliberate rubbing-it-in move. Dobes shoves back, and the whole sequence explodes into penalties. Yet Kucherov just decides to skate off like he didn’t start the party.
That’s the part that bugs me: Kucherov’s talent lets him get away with things others wouldn’t, and the optics are garbage. It looks like he’s trying to manufacture drama, needle youngsters, and work the refs. And when it leads to penalties or cheap shots, that just encourages him to do it again.
Kucherov also has that entitled vibe — like if he’s unhappy, everyone else has to be, too.
There’s also this perpetual moodiness — not just on the ice, but in the way he carries himself. It reads more like entitlement than edge. Hockey’s a physical, emotional game; I get chirps and trash talk. But there’s a line between playing hard and actively trying to rattle a rookie for sport. When that swagger crosses into taunting, and you repeatedly skate away unscathed while lesser players get singled out, it skews fair play.
Maybe I’m old-school. Maybe some people love the gamesmanship and the psychological chess. Fair enough. But to me, it cheapens moments that should be pure. A goal celebration turned into a shove-fest, and a young player got rattled instead of learning and moving on.
It’s on the refs to control such behaviour.
The refs could’ve called it differently. They should’ve thrown the book at that blatant shove to send a message. Instead, Kucherov’s smirk becomes part of the highlight reel, and the rest gets cleaned up by teammates and officials.
The bottom line is that it’s tough to admire his skill because of the cheap stuff. If Kucherov wants to be the guy who taunts and skates away, I guess that he’s earned a certain latitude with his talent. But it’s not the kind of hockey I root for.
I’ll take honest grit and accountability over manufactured drama any day.