Colorado Avalanche: Nathan MacKinnon Having Fun at All Star Weekend

The Colorado Avalanche’s All Star representative, Nathan MacKinnon, is enjoying himself at the festivities in Tampa Bay.

Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon is attending the All Star festivities in Tampa Bay this year. He was a top-notch candidate for the honor this season, not least because he’s second in the NHL for scoring — this contrasts with last year’s “Every team must rep” nomination. (By the way, I agree with that rule — I wouldn’t watch at all if there weren’t an Avalanche player.)

MacKinnon and the rest of the All Stars arrived at Tampa Bay on Friday. One of the media events they participated in was being interviews while holding puppies. The event was to get the puppies adopted and to raise money for the Tampa Humane Society.

Now, everyone likes puppies, and most people like dogs. But Nathan MacKinnon really likes dogs — he’s got lots of cute pictures of him with his dogs on Instagram, but here’s good example:

Plus, as we know, he’s decided to go by Nate Dawg this season, and when he’s playing the way he has been, we’ll call him whatever he wants.

Well, watch as MacKinnon is confronted with a whole pack of puppies — the delight is real:

Here’s MacKinnon hanging out with a friend of his who’s also at the All Star Weekend:

I think he also plays hockey.

It appears his name is Sidney.

Another one of MacKinnon’s old buddoes is Braydenn Schenn, who is also at the festivities to represent the St. Louis Blues. The two had fun playing NHL 18 on the 3-on-3 mode:

Nathan MacKinnon giggles are the best giggles.

As surmised, MacKinnon participated in the Fastest Skater competition. Now, there’s no question in any of our minds that MacKinnon is one of the fastest skaters — and not too many defensemen would argue with that either. However, he’s just a little rough on the turns. Anyway, he got fourth place (out of eight skaters):

Conor McDavid won again. Brayden Point came in second with Jack Eichel at third. What’s a little funny is that Nate Dawg is older than all of them — maybe he’s just getting up there!

MacKinnon also ensured that goalie Henrik Lundqvist’s save streak would end at five:

He also beat Andrei Vasilevskiy in the same competition:

Did anyone reading this know MacKinnon had sick moves like that? 😉

Next: Gotta See MacKinnon's Filthy Goal

The All Star festivities continue tomorrow with the All Star Game at 1 pm MT on NBC. After that, Nate Dawg returns to Colorado to join his teammates for their next leg of the road trip, again across Canada.