Colorado Avalanche
'He is the emotional leader of our team': How Avalanche elite forward continues to excel, helps team improve
Nathan MacKinnon is an exceptional player on and off the ice which makes a huge impact on his team.
Nathan MacKinnon is having his career-best season yet and it's not by chance. The effort he puts in on and off the ice has paid off — but it's more than just physical exertion and conditioning.
The 28-year-old has amazing talent and plays with a high level of intensity. His dedication to his craft is what makes him such a special player, but he is not selfish about his approach. And while it could be a challenge for a coach to manage a serious, business-focused player such as MacKinnon — for Jared Bednar, it is a positive experience.
"Not everyone has the same personality. But I do think the more guys you have with that sort of commitment, drive, details, consistency — both at and away from the rink — the better off you're going to be," the Avalanche's head coach told The Hockey News' Colleen Flynn. "And he tries to drag that out of players, coaches, everyone involved in the organization so that can't be a bad thing."
MacKinnon loves his job and displays that drive which is what makes him such an exceptional player. Bednar said it is not just his physical routine but also the work he puts in off the ice to gather helpful information and how he uses it.
"He's in tune with what's going on. We have conversations about — like, for example, if he notices, he'll see analytics that I have and analytics that are online, in a few different places and if something catches his eye, he'll come and ask about it," Bednar said. "We'll dig into some of his numbers on where, he might make slight improvements. He's really good at everything, right, like, that's just fact. But if there's areas that he feels like, or we feel like he can make slight improvements at, then we talk about them and try to give him examples of it and then he usually goes out and implements into his game right away."
The Halifax, Nova Scotia native currently leads the league in points with 115, which bested his 111 career-high last season. His coach said he has not necessarily changed his routine over the years, but he has refined it.
"I think he's always searching for knowledge. He's got good people around him that help him — knowledge on how to get better, just trying to stay innovative," Bednar said. "But it's really the reason he has success is the discipline and commitment to that, whatever process he chooses to go with."
MacKinnon's leadership role with the Avalanche
Bednar has to deal with a lot of different personalities to create and maintain cohesiveness on the ice and in the locker room. But he also has his team leaders to assist with that and MacKinnon is an important piece to that balance.
"He is the emotional leader of our team. All of our leaders have some different qualities and whatnot, but he is the, without question, the emotional leader of our team," Bednar said. "Like when he's engaged and fired up, the team follows his emotion. Landy (Captain Gabriel Landeskog) leads in a different way. He's the voice of reason, he's really dialed in a lot of areas and we have a bunch of really strong leaders that support — Nate, Landy, Mikko (Rantanen), Cale (Makar) — in different ways. So it's nice to have that mix of leaders in your room so you're you're not missing out on anything. Like everything is provided with our leadership group."
The Avalanche made four major moves before trade deadline which brought in three forwards and a defenseman. As it is the job of the front office group to make those decisions, MacKinnon said he may be consulted on some of them.
"CMac (GM Chris MacFarland) will call me, Joe (President Joe Sakic) will call me if they want an opinion on a player but that's about it. You know, try to stay out of it — especially trading good friends of mine. It's hard you know, with Bo (former Avs defenseman Bowen Byram) leaving, Joey's (former forward Ryan Johansen) a great guy," MacKinnon said. "So you kind of as a player, you want to stay out of it as much as, well all of it, I guess. But if they asked me about a player, I'm going to be honest, and I don't know whatever is going the other way. But yeah, I'll give my two cents when it's asked for."
While those changes could possibly have disturbed the chemistry of the team, the new additions are quickly finding their place on the ice. All coming from different organizations, they were immediately exposed to MacKinnon's intensity by witnessing his routine right away.
"Players will notice almost immediately how dialed in he (MacKinnon) is and hopefully they'll jump on board just like a lot of our guys," Bednar said. "It's one of the strengths to his leadership is when you see guys around you doing the right things all the time. It makes it easy to sort of jump on board especially when you see the success he's had. It's a great example of leading by example, that's what it is. It's leading by example, and holding everyone to a high standard."
MacKinnon said the moves the organization made gives the team a chance and that's what any player in the league wants — a chance to win the Stanley Cup.