On a day where the Quebec Nordiques made a return to Ball Arena (the Colorado Avalanche), Nathan MacKinnon helped the team make a mark against a team that currently resides in their former home town of Montreal—the Canadiens.
The Avalanche pulled away with a commanding lead, finishing off the Canadiens 7-2. MacKinnon scored a goal and assisted on two goals, putting his totals at 20 goals and 24 assists in 25 games. He also becomes the first player to reach 20 goals on the 2025-26 season.
At this current pace, MacKinnon is scheduled to record 65 goals and 78 assists, His current career high of 51 goals and 89 assists happened in the 2023-24 season. At this point, is anybody still surprised about MacKinnon’s production? Well, if the answer is yes, it should be no—especially with how hot the Avs are right now.
The team has beaten up on some solid teams this year, including the Sharks on Wednesday, Canadiens on Saturday, and even the Anaheim Ducks a couple of nights ago. MacKinnon has recorded at least one point in all but four games this season. He’s hotter than any player in the league right now and you’ll have to force him off of the ice for him to slow down. At least it feels that way. The Avalanche and Avs Faithful are thrilled to see this early showing of their superstar forward.
The beauty of the future of the Avs is that, while they appear to be at the top of their game, they are missing key pieces in Valeri Nichushkin and Logan O’Connor. Once the team gets those two players back into the lineup, good luck stopping them. I know that there will be some tough games here and there, but the Avs will have to fight through every single one of them as if they are playing from behind—urgent play and not careless, not too careful, either. They can’t afford playing too “scared” very often because teams can come back on their opponent at any point in the NHL.
MacKinnon’s 20 goals has him on top over Morgan Geekie (18), Kirill Kaprizov (16), as well as several players tied at 15 goals and several at 14. Macklin Celebrini and Connor Bedard are two players that will contend with MacKinnon in the goal hunt throughout the years to come and that’s a lot of fun for fans of the Blackhawks and Sharks. They should be very excited about the future of those players.
It will be a lot of fun for Avs fans to witness the great MacKinnon for the rest of this season and to see if his hot season continues throughout the entire year. If that happens, he’ll surely earn another Hart Trophy, which would be the second of his career. If MacKinnon remains hot, I anticipate that the Avs will continue to win. It would be even better if younger depth players contributed, too, because if that’s the case, MacKinnon might be able to shave off a couple of minutes of ice time to prepare for later down the road and maintain his stamina.
The Avalanche face off againast the Vancouver Canucks, who are struggling at 10-13-2, on December 2.