*Photo from Reuters*
This will go down as the Nathan MacKinnon game. Valeri Nichushkin had 3 assists, MacKinnon had 4 goals, and the Colorado Avalanche defeated the Ottawa Senators with a 6-4 victory on Thursday night in Denver.
The Avalanche improved to 20-11-2 on the season, sitting in second place in the Central Division. Although it's just their 5th win in 10 games, the Avalanche had a big showing at home, with 4 skaters registering multi point games.
One of them was MacKinnon. Adding an assist on top of his 4 goals, he extended his point streak to 17 games, continuing a career best point streak. He has 12 goals and 21 assists during the streak and also surpassed 300 career goals with his 4 goal showing, which was also the first 4 goal game in Avalanche history.
MacKinnon said of his game that "I’m just trying to play the best I can. I thought I’ve had some better games. I just got some goals tonight. They just went in. Hit one off the shin pad, had an empty netter. Sometimes it feels easy. Sometimes it feels really hard. Tonight, was easy."
Starting the scoring was MacKinnon, who gave Colorado a 1-0 lead with a power play goal 2:43 into the game. Josh Norris scored at the 15:13 mark of the first to tie the game for the Senators before Ridley Greig scored 13 seconds after that to make it 2-1 Senators. MacKinnon then scored his second goal of the night to make it 2-2 after one period.
Just 1:32 into the second period, Jacob Bernard-Docker scored his second goal of the season, putting the Senators up 3-2. Drake Batherson then added his 11th goal of the season at the 14:47 mark of the period to make it 4-2 Senators. Mikko Rantanen scored a power play goal with 17 seconds left into the second to cut the Avalanche deficit to 4-3.
On the power play 6:16 into the 3rd period, MacKinnon completed the hat trick to tie the game 4-4. Rantanen followed that up with a power play goal of his own, putting the Avalanche ahead 5-4 with Nichushkin and Cale Makar assisting. With the net empty late, MacKinnon scored his 4th goal of the night to make it 6-4 Avalanche.
Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said of the win that "The second was terrible, terrible. Odd-man rush after odd-man rush coming the other way, so obviously a lack of detail in that period. Loved our first, though. Obviously, our top guys had a night. They were exceptional."
Getting the start for the Avalanche between the pipes was Alexandar Georgiev, who picked up the win to improve to 16-8-1 in 26 starts. Georgiev stopped 41 of the 45 shots the Senators tested him with, giving him a .911 save percentage.
It was Joonas Korpisalo in net for the Senators opposite Georgiev, dropping to 6-11-0 in 18 starts with the loss. Korpisalo turned aside 33 out of the 38 shots on goal that the Avalanche had, recording a .868 save percentage.
Senators interim head coach Jacques Martin said of the loss that "I said to the team after the game, 'You're disappointed and I'm disappointed that we didn't win, but what's important for me right now is that I felt that we progressed from last game to tonight's game.' I thought we had a better effort. We did a better job protecting the red line, not giving our zone as easy as last game, and I thought the second, we got stronger as the game went on. So, that was a good sign."
Both teams get back in action on Saturday. The Avalanche host the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday night, with Georgiev likely to get the start. Korpisalo is the projected starter for the Senators when they face the Pittsburgh Penguins.
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