No lead is safe against the Colorado Avalanche when Nathan MacKinnon is on the ice. One of the NHL's Hart Trophy front-runners has been essential in overcoming deficits in games and the standings.
Nathan MacKinnonConnor McDavid has won three Hart Trophies. Auston Matthews has one.
But if Nikita Zadorov was in charge of the voting, Nathan MacKinnon would take home his first MVP award this spring.
"If I were to build a team, I would build around him over those two guys," the defenseman said Tuesday, before his Vancouver Canucks fell 4-3 to the Colorado Avalanche in overtime. "Because he's a winner. He won the Stanley Cup, for sure."
On top of his championship pedigree, MacKinnon's torrid and consistent scoring pace this season has further strengthened his case.
Already past last season's career high of 111 points, a goal and an assist on Wednesday moved him to 115 points for the year, eight clear of second-place Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
McDavid is surging — up to third place with 106 points after a three-point outing against the Washington Capitals on Wednesday. And with 54 goals, Matthews is in the pole position for his third career Rocket Richard Trophy.
But neither of them has yet had playoff success. As MacKinnon helps the Avalanche build momentum toward another big run this spring, that's where he holds the edge.
Wednesday's game against Vancouver was his fifth straight with at least two points. He also stretched his latest point streak to 14 games — already the third time this season he has had a streak that long. In doing so, he joined McDavid, Marcel Dionne and Wayne Gretzky as the only players in NHL history to record three point streaks of 14 games or more in a single season.
"The best player in the world is humming right now," said Zadorov, who spent five seasons in Colorado from 2015 to 2020.
For nearly 40 minutes on Wednesday, the Canucks contained the Avalanche as they built a 3-0 lead.
But like they've already done on the road against the Dallas Stars and Toronto Maple Leafs this season, MacKinnon and company erased that deficit to claim two points — and did it with some holes in their forward group, as Artturi Lehkonen, Jonathan Drouin, Zach Parise and Logan O'Connor were all sidelined.
The comeback began in the dying moments of the second period. After the puck took a strange bounce when it hit a camera hole in the glass, MacKinnon skated toward it, then drew the Canucks' J.T. Miller in his direction as he pivoted away. That left room for newly acquired Casey Mittelstadt to fire a shot on net, which Mikko Rantanen deflected past Vancouver's Casey DeSmith.
At 3:19 of the second, MacKinnon scored Colorado's second goal on a 5-on-3 one-timer, tying his personal career high with 42 goals. Then, on a 4-on-3 power play, he set up the game-winner at 30 seconds of overtime.
His shot was another one-timer off a perfect pass from Cale Makar, which deflected off Vancouver defenseman Noah Juulsen before bouncing off Valeri Nichushkin's visor and into the net.
The comeback strike was nothing new for the Avs or MacKinnon, who was named the first star with a two-point effort in January's 5-3 win over the Leafs.
"We've always been a really good group, down a couple," he said, while calling Wednesday's game "the best win of the year, for sure."
It was also the fifth win in a row for the Avalanche, which bolstered their troops before the trade deadline with the acquisitions of Mittelstadt, Brandon Duhaime, Yakov Trenin and defenseman Sean Walker.
The two points vaulted them over the Winnipeg Jets and Dallas Stars and into first place in the tight Central, where a division championship would assure what should be a more favorable first-round playoff matchup against a wild-card team — perhaps the Nashville Predators.
While McDavid's Oilers and Matthews' Maple Leafs have space around them in the standings, MacKinnon's offensive presence is not only valuable but essential in guiding the Avalanche through a challenging division battle.