Nathan MacKinnon’s milestone caps perfect homestand for Colorado Avalanche

The Colorado Avalanche worked their way through a slog of a hockey game to win, 3-0, over the Chicago Blackhawks. The win completed a six-game homestand for the Avalanche with a perfect 6-0 record. The game wasn’t without its struggles, but the Avs managed to avoid losing their third straight game this season to the lowly Blackhawks.

It started with a bang as Nathan MacKinnon seemed to register his 1,000th career point early in the first period, but it was called back because Avalanche forward Martin Necas was deemed to be about this | | far offside.

A magical moment for the history books was wiped off the board and the game entered into one with a weird energy. The game remained 0-0 through the first two periods before the Avs finally broke through in the third period with two goals in the first 3:27. Those two goals held up as Scott Wedgewood recorded a 20-save shutout and Colorado added an empty-net goal later on.

The Avs are winners of six of eight and eight of 10. Let’s talk about how they just aced this homestand.

Nathan MacKinnon, possibly the greatest Colorado Avalanche player ever?

It seems sacrilegious to suggest that someone could ever surpass Joe Sakic, but we’re staring down the possibility of MacKinnon pushing Sakic for that honor. MacKinnon sits only 14 points behind Sakic for the all-time Avalanche points leader but still sits many more behind Sakic’s career total between Quebec and Colorado so MacKinnon isn’t closing in on that just yet.

Still, with a Stanley Cup championship and Hart Trophy as the league’s MVP on his mantle, along with lesser awards such as the Calder Trophy and Lady Byng (lol), MacKinnon’s trophy case as a member of the Avs is starting to fill up. With 17 games left in the season, MacKinnon leads Leon Draisaitl in the scoring race by five points so he could soon be adding an Art Ross Trophy to his collection.

If he does that and then wins a Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in leading the Avalanche to a second Stanley Cup during his tenure, he will have matched the career accolades of Sakic. There are a lot of “ifs” in that scenario, but he could accomplish all but passing Sakic’s career points total in the next three months. Everything would have to break his way, but it’s not a wildly unrealistic scenario.

I’m getting ahead of myself, but MacKinnon became just the 100th player in NHL history (roughly 7,500 players ever) to cross the 1,000-point threshold in a career. He did it faster than Sakic did and is just one of 16 players to ever accomplish the feat before his 30th birthday (which is September 1 of this year, by the way).

His dominance tonight was the story once again as Colorado’s new-look depth struggled to make the same kind of offensive impact it did in the team’s comeback win over Toronto, but MacKinnon got them across the finish line there. His secondary assist on Artturi Lehkonen’s deflection goal 31 seconds into the third period gave the Avs a 1-0 lead and he hit the 1,000-point mark.

For the second time on the night, his teammates poured off the bench and onto the ice to accompany him and congratulate him on the feat. This time, it counted, although it looked like the Chicago coaching staff was at least tempted by the notion to challenge again. They didn’t, and the game moved on.

Just 2:57 later, MacKinnon stole a puck that was trying to leave the offensive zone and found Martin Necas, whose goal was the one wiped off the board earlier, and he scored a goal that definitely counted this time. In two shifts in the third period, Colorado had made it 2-0 behind their superstar center.

It held up, and the night once again belonged to MacKinnon.

Scott Wedgewood was great once again

Completely overshadowed by MacKinnon because, you know, Wedgewood was unbelievable tonight. This was the best he’s played as an Av and that’s saying something because he’s put up a .922 save percentage and this was his second shutout in just 12 appearances since joining Colorado. So, you know, pretty good stuff.

It wasn’t the quantity of saves for Wedgewood as 20 shots against is a pretty light workload, but oh my goodness some of those saves. One of them was definitely goaltender interference and would have been called back had it gone in, but he made the save anyway and did it his own damn self.

Wedgewood was outstanding and I wish there was more for me to say about how good he was, but I feel like those highlights linked above tell a proper story. He made some saves that made you say, “Wow!”

He did everything he could to upstage MacKinnon on this night and it is a testament to his play that it was a valiant effort. His work as Colorado’s backup continues to be wonderful.