Avalanche star Nathan MacKinnon is on pace to have the second-best statistical season of his career. He’s got 93 points through 55 games, on pace for 138 points. While he is three points behind Edmonton Oilers superstar Connor McDavid, he’s still very much in play to win another Hart trophy.
The fun thing about his current pace is that it actually falls two points shy of his career-best from two years ago. In 2023-24, MacKinnon had 51 goals and 89 assists or 140 points. Given his stat line from the year after (32 goals and 84 assists or 116 points in 79 games), it proves that, while he still had a great season for NHL standards, it fell short of his own standards.
MacKinnon doesn’t like to have the spotlight on himself. He doesn’t make much out of getting the credit for his solid play. For every couple of great plays he makes, he also is prone to a mistake here and there. I guess that is in a way suggesting that he’s not just an animal. He’s human sometimes. That’s okay though. It happens.
The Avalanche are five points ahead of three other teams, with one of them being the Minnesota Wild. Right behind the Wild are the Stars, who have 77 points. It’s fair to assume that the Avs will cool down at some point given how difficult it is to get back on track after a couple of weeks off. Put it this way: I wouldn’t necessarily be shocked if that happens. We’ve seen a bad stretch from the Avalanche here and there this year, and they’re still leading the league. It’s a wonderful thing to witness.
One way that MacKinnon could up his pace is having success on the power play. Colorado is dead last on the power play at 15.1 percent. Sure, you may be tired of hearing that, but I’m only spitting the facts there. They have failed to find the back of the net so many times on the power play this season, it is sickening. I’m not sure if they’ll ever get that figured out, but MacKinnon scoring goals on special teams would be the final instalment to an already-superb season. If they are able to make that happen, good luck stopping them.
Now, I’m just spitballing here, but, even though Dave Hakstol has integrated his own system on the power play, perhaps one of the Avalanche players in Italy for the Olympics finds a certain way to find the back on the net on the power play. Maybe they will notice some things that they can bring back to Hakstol to try out in practice. I know it is tough to go from one system to another, but their current plan isn’t working.
It also might benefit the Avalanche to demote MacKinnon and perhaps even Cale Makar, like Katie Bartlett suggested. The reality is that what they’ve been doing, no matter if the shots get through or not, is just not working. Something needs to change.
If and when that “something” changes, MacKinnon might be able to improve the Avs’ power play going forward. If that happens, he would be able to get back on pace and maybe even pass his current best of points in a season.