Good News on X: Kucherov Caught Stamkos, the Magic and Paradise Play Tonight and Japan's Mars Probe Checked In

The National Weather Service in Ruskin opened today with "Rise and repeat!" which is the most Florida weather forecast ever written. Dry, comfortable, the wind finally calming down. Nobody has to make a decision about a jacket. Here's what people on X were happy about since last night.

Kucherov caught Stamkos in Vegas, after midnight our time

If you went to bed during the first intermission, you missed some history. The Lightning beat Vegas 6-2 at T-Mobile Arena, and Nikita Kucherov had a goal and two assists. Per the ESPN recap, that put him at 1,137 career points, all of them with Tampa Bay, which ties his former teammate Steven Stamkos for the most in franchise history. The tying point was a third-period breakaway, which is a very Kucherov way to do it.

Point #1137

— Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) Watch on X

Anthony Cirelli scored twice, Victor Hedman, Brandon Hagel and John Carlson scored too, and Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 32 of 34. Per ESPN, the Bolts are 7-2, their best start since the 2020-21 team that went on to win the Cup again, and Kucherov has now put up a point in all 15 games he's ever played against Vegas. The team's morning post was "Good morning to everyone, but especially to 86," which is fair. One more point and the record is his alone.

Two home openers tonight: the Magic and Sarasota Paradise

The Orlando Magic open their season tonight at 7 p.m. ET at Kia Center against the Atlanta Hawks, per ESPN. The team's whole morning post was two words, and honestly that's the correct amount of words for opening night.

go time.

— Orlando Magic (@OrlandoMagic) Watch on X

The line, per DraftKings via ESPN (pulled about 9:25 a.m. ET): Orlando is a 2.5-point favorite, ORL -2.5 (-108), ATL +2.5 (-112). Moneyline ORL -130 / ATL +110. O/U 234.5.

Closer to home, Sarasota Paradise hosts FC Naples at 6:30 p.m. at Premier Sports Campus in Lakewood Ranch, a USL League One game with playoff stakes attached. Naples is bringing a road section and calling it "a must-win game," so expect noise in sections 401 and 402. Paradise is already selling 2027 season tickets, and a Wednesday night soccer game in Lakewood Ranch in this weather is a hard thing to complain about.

The line, per DraftKings via ESPN (pulled about 9:25 a.m. ET): Sarasota Paradise is the favorite, SAR -140 / FC Naples +290 / draw +275. O/U 2.5 goals. No spread posted.

The Rays start the World Series Friday in Milwaukee

The pennant party was Monday. The Rays spent Tuesday posting it from every angle, and the best one was the post captioned "Home is where the pennant is".

The moment your Tampa Bay Rays became AL Champs

— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) Watch on X

Game 1 against the Milwaukee Brewers is Friday at 8 p.m. ET at American Family Field on Fox, with Game 2 Saturday, per ESPN. The Brewers took the regular-season series 2-1, back in the spring, when nobody here was thinking about this.

The Game 1 line, per DraftKings via ESPN (pulled about 9:25 a.m. ET Wednesday): Milwaukee is the moneyline favorite, MIL -162 / TB +134. Run line MIL -1.5 (+150), TB +1.5 (-182). O/U 6. The Rays were underdogs in Cleveland too. They seem fine with it.

Odds are information, not advice. 21+ only. If gambling stops being fun, call 1-800-GAMBLER.

Japan's Mars-moon probe called home, and it's fine

On Monday I told you Japan was leaving for a moon of Mars at 3:41 in the afternoon. It went. Overnight, JAXA posted that the MMX spacecraft finished its initial critical operations phase and is in good health. Next come equipment checks, then the long cruise to Mars, where it's supposed to pick up a sample of Phobos and bring it back.

Completion of the Initial Critical Operations Phase of the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) Spacecraft

— JAXA (@JAXA_en) See it on X

JAXA's Japanese account asked people who saw the rocket to post with #ロケット見えた, "I saw the rocket." A spacecraft sending a "doing fine" text a day and a half after leaving home is already doing better than most college freshmen.

A startup taught a computer to read plants

This one's for everybody with a dead fiddle-leaf fig in their past. A San Francisco company called Electric Plant came out of stealth Tuesday with $11.2 million in seed money and a model called Bombadil. Per its announcement, a low-cost sensor called Bud records the electrical signals inside a plant's stem, and the model reads them for signs of stress, including water stress and how well the plant is photosynthesizing. The white paper says it trained on more than 4 million hours of recordings from 100 species, and co-founder Justin Mast, who started the plant-delivery company Bloomscape, wrote that the data is past 7 million hours now. The pitch is that a grower could know a plant is thirsty before the leaves say so. Down here, half the county waters the lawn at noon in the rain, so there's room for this.

Sienna made it to Wales

Niall Harbison runs Happy Doggo, which feeds and cares for street dogs in Thailand, and on Tuesday he posted the kind of before-and-after that makes a phone feel useful. He found Sienna a year ago, alone on the street after a life of having litters. Now she's in Wales, fluffy, and looks like nobody has ever once told her to get off the couch.

Sienna when I found her this time last year alone on the streets of Thailand after a life of giving puppies. Look at her now so fluffy and happy in Wales

— Niall Harbison (@NiallHarbison) See it on X

He wrote that he looks at old photos like this when the work wears him down. More than 21,000 people liked it, which is a lot of people agreeing with him.

It's Back to the Future Day, and Reptile Awareness Day

Oct. 21 is Back to the Future Day, because it's the date Marty McFly lands in the future in the second movie, Oct. 21, 2015. We are now 11 years past the future. Still no hoverboards, but the Lightning won in Vegas, so it isn't all bad.

It's also National Reptile Awareness Day, which in Florida means acknowledging the anole doing push-ups on your screen door and the gator in the retention pond who was there before the subdivision. Give them room. Throw in National Apple Day and National Pumpkin Cheesecake Day and you have a whole lunch plan.

And it's Support Your Local Chamber of Commerce Day. The simple version of that is buying from somebody local. If you need a name, Gigly is a good place to start looking.

Planning the rest of the week? I already did the homework in Coming This Week.

That's Wednesday. One franchise record, two home openers and a healthy spaceship. Go outside, it's nice.