Colorado Avalanche: Kendall Coyne to Replace MacKinnon in Skills Competition

With Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon out with an apparent foot injury, Olympian and NWHL star Kendall Coyne gets to make history.

Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon hurt his foot blocking a shot in the Minnesota Wild game. Because of the hurt foot, he is unable to participate in the All Star Skills Competition and is highly unlikely for the game, though he did fly to San Jose to “take part in the festivities.” (He also didn’t do any interviews, so I don’t know what he’s done.)

MacKinnon was slated to participate in the Fastest Skater competition, which is no surprise since he’s accounted one of the fastest skaters in the NHL. Indeed, he participated in that competition the last two years, though he lost last year to Conor McDavid.

In his place, Kendall Coyne is partcipating:

Kendall Coyne holds a very impressive hockey resume. She’s medaled twice in the Olympic Games and six times in the World Championships plus an additional three times in Under-18 contests. One of those Olympic medals is the gold medal upset of Team USA Women’s over Team Canada. She won a silver medal in Sochi. Five of the World Championship and two of the U-18 are gold medals, while the other two are silver.

Coyne must have an oversized trophy case.

Kendall played four years for the NCAA Northeastern Huskies women’s ice hockey team. The forward even earned the  Patty Kazmaier Award as the top female college ice hockey player in the United States.

Coyne was drafted by the Boston Pride in the 2015 NWHL Draft, going third-overall. She signed with the Minnesota Whitecaps the following year and has been playing for them ever since, though they just joined the NWHL this season.

Coyne was the first woman to play in the Chicago Pro Hockey League at MB Arena on July 11, 2018. Sounds like she’s pretty good.

Kendall was in San Jose as part of the NHL All Star festivities already. She along with fellow Olympians Brianna Decker, Renata Fast and Rebecca Johnston were slated to display their skills before the men participated in the competition.

Last year, for the first time ever, three Team USA Women’s hockey players — Meghan Duggan, Hannah Brandt and Hilary Knight — demonstrated each event. Had Knight participated in the Accuracy Shooting event that she demonstrated, she would have come in second place.

Kendall Coyne will be the first woman to actually compete when she takes MacKinnon’s place. Coming in cold on Thursday, fresh of her five-hour flight into San Jose, she put up a time of 14.226 seconds in the testing. Last year, McDavid beat MacKinnon — and won the whole event — with a 13.454 time.

Some hockey fans reacted poorly to the announcement that Coyne would take MacKinnon’s place. I’d like to say it was worry about Nathan that prompted them — the Colorado Avalanche’s season is toast if MacK is out for any length of time. However, the concern was expressed as discomfort in letting a player who’s not an NHLer compete in the All Star Skills Competition.

I’m going to guess they didn’t hold the same view when John Scott, by then an AHLer, competed in the 2016 All Star festivities. Indeed, some fans (male fans) stated their outright disgruntlement that a woman was being allowed to compete.

Hey, what’s the Hockey Is For Everyone slogan? If you can play, you can play. And these ladies can play. They can play a lot better than many, many of the men who have NHL contracts. They can play much better than certain Colorado Avalanche players who shall remain unnamed because you’ll all probably come up with different ones and be correct.

This is nothing but an important step in the right direction. No, Kendall Coyne did not get to the NHL All Star Skills Competition the traditional way because that way has thus far been blocked to her. Girls don’t get drafted by the NHL, so then don’t get to turn into women NHLers.

However, hopefully Kendall Coyne’s inclusion — and the continued inclusion of more talented and celebrated women’s hockey players such as all the ones listed in this post — will change that little NHL draft anomaly. I look forward to the day the Colorado Avalanche draft the best player available — who happens to be a girl.

UPDATED: Coyne recorded a 14.346 time, which didn’t win. However, here is her impressive skate:

After the competition, Nathan MacKinnon praised her stride and overall skating ability.
Update #2:

IT WAS ALL NATE’S IDEA! That’s our All Star.