3/27/2023 0 Comments Duo denver![]() ![]() ![]() Although never billed as one of the occasional “generational” talents - e.g., Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews - it wasn’t out of line to except more from him than he delivered, especially when he had 16 goals in the Avs’ horrific 2016-17 season. 1 overall NHL 2013 draft choice, even after winning the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year in that magical 112-point 2013-14 season under Patrick Roy. This still sometimes is underplayed, and this is where the historical context adds to the magnitude of MacKinnon’s accomplishments: It wasn’t that long ago - four years - that he seemed in danger of going down as an underachieving No. ![]() They’re 1-2-3 in NHL playoff scoring going into Thursday night’s games, with Landeskog at one goal and four assists and Rantanen with four assists, leaving him tied at four points with Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov. The MacKinnon-centered line was dominant as the Avs claimed a 2-0 lead in the series heading into Game 3 at St. Honestly, without those guys battling and mucking when I’m up high, those pucks don’t go in.” All my goals are through great screens in front. “I don’t know if I’m at another level,” MacKinnon said in the late-night Zoom availability. MacKinnon brought up his linemates, wingers Gabe Landskog and Mikko Rantanen. That again was the case Wednesday night, after his hat trick in the Avalanche’s 6-3 win over the Blues at Ball Arena in Game 2 of the first-round series.Ĭonsidering the franchise’s glory-years playoff runs, and even the odds, it’s almost hard to believe - as in, “is that right?” - that it was the Avalanche’s first playoff hat trick since Valeri Kamensky’s in 1997 against the Blackhawks. Granted, in line with the game’s protocol - the deeply rooted “aw shucks” protocol, not the extraordinary and short-term reactions to a pandemic - MacKinnon sometimes protests too much. I granted myself flexibility to define “markets,” most notably dividing Los Angeles-area franchises into two distinct markets to get the Clippers and Lakers, and Ducks and Kings and Knicks and Rangers, and Nets and Islanders all into separate groupings (while leaving out the Devils).īut for now, let’s marvel at MacKinnon’s continued eye-popping play. The nearly 50-percent capacity crowds now allowed at both Avalanche and Nuggets games are, or will be, so into it, you might wonder if crowd augmenting noise is being pumped through the sound system.Īt the end of this, I’ll run down my rankings of tandems in the 16 markets that qualify. (It’s not even necessary to take sides to say that the dispute between billionaires and mega-companies has become both farcical and disgusting.) Now that the playoffs are underway, the Altitude-Comcast dispute that left Coloradans frozen out of telecasts or scrambling to find available streams no longer will be as maddening. Of the markets with both hockey and hoops franchises, Colorado has the top NHL/NBA individual tandem.Ĭolorado’s fandom is fortunate on that front. You can certainly find reasonable choices other than MacKinnon for the NHL’s Hart Trophy.īut put the two Colorado-based centers together, and I don’t think this is even debatable. You can advance other defensible candidates beyond Jokic for the NBA’s MVP award. If Jokic can be similarly effective out of the postseason gate, it will underscore something that became increasingly obvious as the pandemic-delayed seasons unfolded. The Nuggets and Nikola Jokic open the postseason Saturday night at home against the Trail Blazers. Through two games in the Avalanche’s first-round series against the Blues, Nathan MacKinnon has five goals and two assists and is the NHL’s leading playoff scorer going into Thursday night’s games. He will be writing commentaries during Colorado’s 2021 playoff run for the MHS site. EDITOR’S NOTE: Mile High Sports Magazine contributing writer and author Terry Frei has covered the Avalanche since its 1995 arrival in Denver. ![]()
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