Top 25 Avalanche Under 25: #1 Nathan MacKinnon

After a month of going through the top young players, we’ve finally reached the conclusion. The ’25 Avalanche Under 25′ series has been a tremendous amount of fun to write and hopefully read. In case you’ve missed the final installments during the final countdown, be sure to check out #4 Ryan O’Reilly, #3 Gabriel Landeskog, and #2 Matt Duchene.

At #1, the unanimous top choice among all 6 BSN Avalanche writers, sits future superstar and the only #1 overall pick in Colorado Avalanche team history, Nathan MacKinnon.

Who is Nathan MacKinnon?

If you’ve followed the Avalanche in any capacity over the last two seasons, you already know the answer to this question. If you haven’t, welcome! The first overall selection in the 2011 QMJHL draft, Nathan MacKinnon  has been ticketed as a superstar since he was 14 years old when he scored 101 points as a Bantam player.

When looking at his career statistics, you see one constant: he never stopped scoring. Even as a 16-year old in the QMJHL, he produced 78 points in 58 games played. The first true adversity for MacKinnon came this past season as a sophomore in the NHL, when he fought bad puck luck and confidence issues before breaking his foot and ending his season prematurely.

Despite experience bumps in his development for the first time in his career, MacKinnon still possesses elite tools that will see him take the NHL by storm in the near future and dominate games. His combination of elite speed, quick hands, and high-end shot are sure to produce a career full of things like this:

…not enough? Let’s take a longer look…

That’s just him during his first NHL playoff run, scoring 10 points in 7 games. Curious how he is during the arduous regular season?

Some players let their play do all the talking. Take it away, Nate.

What is the future for Nathan MacKinnon?

Easy enough. His future is as a top-5 player in the NHL, a generational talent that is going to carry the Avalanche for years and should become the first Avs player to eclipse 30 goals since Joe Sakic and Milan Hejduk in 2006-07.

Just to illustrate his tenacity in all phases of the game, let’s go with one last highlight of MacKinnon tangling with David Backes, noted physical play enthusiast and captain of the St. Louis Blues, in a game the Avalanche dominated.