Brace yourself, NHL; Avalanche star Nathan MacKinnon is just getting started

It was an eventful summer for Colorado Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon. Long since anointed the future of the franchise and the team’s best player, he was rewarded as such financially when he signed a seven-year contract extension that pays him an average of $6.3 million per season. The high annual amount made him the team’s highest-paid player.

The organization doubled down on its faith in the 21-year old by announcing he would be one of the team’s alternate captains throughout the season (he will alternate the alternate captaincy with Matt Duchene).

MacKinnon was also one of the stars of this summer’s World Cup of Hockey as he was one of the faces of Team North America, a collection of the best young players from the United States and Canada. His time with the team helped get him ready for the start of the season and definitely prepared him for opening night.

“It helps me to stay even-keel,” a tired MacKinnon said. “It wasn’t as many jitters as it usually is. I’ve been playing for the past month-and-a-half. Our camp started early September and I feel like I’ve been going for a while.”

While he was already in game shape and playing at a high level, it didn’t stop tonight’s contest against the Dallas Stars from feeling like the season’s first. “It definitely feels like the first game of the season,” MacKinnon explained. “It was better than last year’s first game so we’ll take the win.”

Last year’s season opener, of course, was the game that began as an exorcism of demons for the Avalanche as they raced to a three-goal lead against the rival Minnesota Wild before collapsing in the third period and giving away two points, setting the tone for a season of missed opportunities.

Tonight had a similar feel as the Avalanche built a three-goal advantage in the second period before watching it slowly evaporate as the game wore on. This game, however, the Avalanche would stave off the third period blues and continue pushing the pace against the high-octane Stars. For MacKinnon, it the kind of game he hopes to see more of, even with the necessary adjustments still to come.

“(We had) a little too much fun,” MacKinnon said with a wry smile. “We want to tighten up a little bit but the offense was good. We outshot them for once (laughs). Feels like it’s been a while since we outshot a team and I thought we outplayed them.”

While giving up five goals is never an ideal situation, MacKinnon acknowledges the wounds tonight were largely self-inflicted and feels the team has more to give in terms of helping goaltender Semyon Varlamov.

“You know, everything we gave up, like our coaches said, we gave them,” MacKinnon stated. “It feels good. Obviously, we need to help out Varly a bit more but we’ll take the win.”

In the quest to take the next step both as a player and leader of the team, MacKinnon wasted little time in putting his name all over the score sheet. While the star of the night was Joe Colborne and his first career hat-trick, MacKinnon added an assist his first goal while also scoring the team’s fourth goal shortly after a clean faceoff win.

“It’s nice (to score in the season’s first game),” MacKinnon intimated. “You’re not behind the eight ball and it always feels good to score and help out as much as you can. Obviously, it’s a long year and 81 more games to go so that’s why I kind of stay even-keel. I had a hot start last year and didn’t really finish so I just want to play good this season.”

While last year’s hot start eventually led to an ultimately disappointing final tally of just 52 points in 72 games, the knee injury that stole the final ten of the season was additional salt in the wound. He has high expectations of himself this season and beginning the year playing alongside captain Gabriel Landeskog and future Hall-of-Famer Jarome Iginla has him positioned to continue shining brightly as the team’s diamond.

“We were good,” MacKinnon said of his line’s play. “I thought we had a lot of chances and could’ve had a couple more, a couple more bounces. I think the puck was going backwards a lot of the time tonight. We played a really good game and I felt like we didn’t get all the bounces going our way.”

On a night when MacKinnon registered two points, it’s scary to think what he might be able to do when he feels like his line is actually getting the bounces. For the Avalanche, they hope this is only just the beginning of their young star blossoming into one of the league’s superstars.