Colorado Avalanche: Comparing Nathan MacKinnon and Johnny Gaudreau

Despite the regular-season standings, the Colorado Avalanche and Calgary Flames are well-matched. The two team stars are very similar in roles for their teams.

The Colorado Avalanche and Calgary Flames are battling to the (sudden) death (overtime) in Round 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Flames, the Western Conference champions, are heavily favored to win the series. However, you play the games because the regular season doesn’t dictate the outcome.

We’ll be seeing a lot of storylines play out through this series. However, for each team, there is a single player who stands out above the others. For Calgary, it’s Johnny “Rat-like Activity Detected” Gaudreau. And for Colorado, it’s Nathan “MVP” MacKinnon.

So, let’s take a look at these two stars and how they match up against each other.

Nathan MacKinnon

Superstar Nathan MacKinnon had help this season, but make no mistake, he’s still the team’s MVP. He led the team in goals and overall scoring.

Indeed, MacKinnon had a record year. For the first time in his career, he passed the 40-goal mark, joining Milan Hejduk and HHOFer Joe Sakic in the annals of Avalanche history for that marker. He also recorded 99 points, besting last year’s total of 97.

MacKinnon skated in all 82 games for the third time in his career. He matched last year’s total of power play goals with 12 and recorded his second-best shooting percentage, 11.2% But he was a shooting machine, shooting a team-leading 365 times.

Nate is also our alternate captain.

Johnny Gaudreau

Flames star Johnny Gaudreau also had as much help, or more, as Nathan. He’s not an alternate captain, but we don’t need to focus on that necessarily.

Anyway, like MacKinnon, Gaudreau earned 99 points (36 goals, 63 assists) this season. His totals represent career bests across the board. It should be noted that Johnny is two years older than Nate.

Like MacKinnon, Gaudreau skated in all 82 games. He didn’t have his best year in power play goals (6), but he topped out at 8 game-winning goals. (Nate had 6 — last year he had 12).

Gaudreau had his career-best in both shots (245) and shooting percentage (14.7%).

Full Comparison

These two players are extraordinarily well-matched. This year, they had nearly parallel seasons — and career seasons at that.

Looking at advanced stats from this year, they’re also well-matched:

Goals per Game:

Gaudreau: 0.44
MacKinnon: 0.50

Assists per Game:

Gaudreau: 0.77
MacKinnon: 0.71

Points per Game:

Gaudreau: 1.21
MacKinnon: 1.21

CorsiFor:

Gaudreau: 54.9
MacKinnon: 53.2

CorsiFor Relative:

Gaudreau: 1.7
MacKinnon: 5.4

More from Stanley Cup Playoffs

=/-:

Gaudreau: +18
MacKinnon: +20

Both made All Star appearances.

However, this is Gaudreau’s first playoff appearance. For Nate,it’s his third. He appeared in all seven games of the 2014 playoffs and all six of the 2018 playoffs. He’s recorded 16 points (5 goals, 11 assists) in the postseason.

MacKinnon is also much more of a speedy tank, if that’s a thing. He’s quite a bit bigger — 6-foot, 205 pounds to Gaudreau’s 5-foot-9, 165 pounds. Yet the extra weight doesn’t make Nate slower — he is, in fact, one of the fastest players in the NHL.

Gaudreau is known as being a creative player and a wiz on the breakaway. Nate controls the pace of the game and has some of the fastest stickwork I’ve ever seen. He plays chop suey with the puck, and that’s got to dazzle opponents.

Next. Possibility of Makar in the Playoffs. dark

I’m a homer, so of course I prefer our MacK Daddy to Johnny Hockey. The two probably won’t be on the ice together this series, but it should be an interesting “match up” just the same.

Advantage goes to the Colorado Avalanche as far as I’m concerned, though.

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