MacKinnon's intensity is driving the Avalanche wherever it goes

If I wandered around the Denver metro area knocking on front doors and asking if people were familiar with Nathan MacKinnon, chances are I’d get a decent amount of “yes” responses but still enough “no” answers to make me feel inadequate at my job.

If I surveyed the casual hockey landscape, however, I wouldn’t find anybody who isn’t familiar with MacKinnon.

That was driven home during the last week of announcing the finalists for the NHL awards as MacKinnon found himself a finalist for three of them. Two, the Ted Lindsay and the Hart, are essentially given to the player deemed by the players (Ted Lindsay) and media (Hart) to have been the best player this year.

The other, the Lady Byng, is given out to a player who best exhibits a combination of great play and “gentlemanly conduct” and in recent years has become an award given to a player who sees a lot of ice time but doesn’t take many penalties.

During today’s training camp session, MacKinnon’s teammates might have had a hard time finding some of that “gentlemanly conduct” as he was as amped up as he can get, playing with high intensity and shouting at a high volume before and after drills.

While certainly not designed to make friends, MacKinnon’s intensity has consistently been contagious as the more he demands from himself, the more he demands from his teammates and, typically, the more he gets from them. It’s an approach being encouraged, for the moment, by his head coach.

“I think that’s what we are looking for from our leaders and I think Nate does a really good job with that,” Jared Bednar said. “Getting in five on five drills that are sort of scrimmage based or game situational stuff where you have to try and create offense or defend especially in zone play, I want to see that intensity up because it’s hard to just flip a switch to go from scrimmage mode and summer mode straight into very meaningful games and the intensity level is gonna get up in a hurry and the more prepared we are for that the better off we are gonna be so I’m relying on our leaders to continually kind of dial this thing up until we play our first game, that exhibition game. That goes for special teams as well, we know that goaltending is going to be a real big key going into the playoffs as it always is and special teams are always a big factor in success or failure. We have a hunger to score on our power play, we know that we wanted to improve from the area it was in the regular season and Nate’s doing a really good job kind of driving that intensity and the game situations stuff not just in practices but into the scrimmages too and putting a high demand on our guys to want to try and score every single opportunity we get.”

Even as those conversations occasionally get a little heated, everyone understands they’re happening for a reason. Today they came during a spirited session of special teams work as MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen had multiple conversations after drills.

“Everybody in that power play group or everybody I play with, I like to talk about plays,” Rantanen said. “Nate loves to talk about plays, Landy likes to talk about plays and we like to do that. I think you need to do it before special teams or even five on five you have to go through things. It doesn’t always just roll through, you can’t be silent on the bench and expect to play well and know what the other guys want to do. That’s why you have to have that communication, Nate is obviously a good leader and the way he demands from us a lot. I think I learned that from him, he demands the best every day. You won’t be able to do it every day obviously there’s bad days and stuff like that but the way he demands I think I learned from him a lot that you have to be on top of your game every day.”

Demanding the best every day from his teammates really only began after he started demanding the very best from himself first. Since honing in on the finer points of his game, MacKinnon has ascended to the league’s elite, leading him to perennial MVP territory.

“I think when I really turned my game around and I really started to focus on every little detail off the ice and on the ice,” MacKinnon said of his transformation three years ago. “I’m up for some big awards two of three years, I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Obviously getting older and getting more mature helps, but I definitely had to dial it in in every aspect of my game. I had some tough seasons to figure that out and once I did it’s obviously very rewarding, I know a lot of people close to me or proud, but like I’ve always said to leave a legacy you have to win. That’s not what I’m really looking to do is leave a legacy, but I want to win with these guys, we’re such a close group, everyone wants to see each other succeed and obviously with my teammates being so amazing, play with some great players and they make my life really easy out there.”

From the eyes of his longtime linemate, there hasn’t been as much of a shift as the rest of the world has seen.

“I don’t think there’s change,” Rantanen said. “The last three years he’s played he’s been growing all the time. He’s been really good every year, now he’s just doing what he does, playing good hockey and produces goals and points and plays good for the team so that’s what he’s been doing for the last three years and this might be the best he’s played like you said. Just normal how he plays I think.”

Rantanen thinks what MacKinnon does is normal. The rest of us think it borderlines on superhuman. Whether he wins those awards or not, they’ll just be shiny objects on his mantle until he becomes what he really wants:

Stanley Cup champion.

News and Notes

• Nathan MacKinnon was named as a finalist for the Hart Trophy yesterday. He is a finalist for the award, given annually to the league’s MVP, for the second time in three years and is joined by Artemi Panarin of the New York Rangers and Leon Draisaitl of the Edmonton Oilers.
• I don’t have any inside information but I’m not expecting MacKinnon to win the Hart for reasons that will just make people roll their eyes. All of the arguments used against MacKinnon and to justify Taylor Hall’s win two years ago now apply in MacKinnon’s favor and are largely being disregarded because…reasons. Here’s to hoping I’m wrong.
• No Cale Makar again today but MacKinnon did mention in his post-practice media session that he thinks Makar will be good to go soon. We’ll see.
• Today was another session with two groups and the ‘main’ NHL team occupying Group 1 while the AHL guys were mostly Group 2. Conor Timmins slid into the first group in Makar’s absence.
• Not many player thoughts from this one as it was just a regular practice session. Given only one session is scheduled for tomorrow, I’m expecting we’ll get another scrimmage. We’re down to the last three days before they fly to the Edmonton bubble.

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Post-Practice Interviews

Nathan MacKinnon

Mikko Rantanen

Jared Bednar