Nathan MacKinnon from Colorado was so excited after scoring an overtime goal that he did a fist pump in the air as he skated around! He got 100 points for this NHL season– a huge accomplishment. By celebrating like this, Nathan showed that the Avalanche team was ready to defend their Stanley Cup championship.
The Colorado Avalanche are doing really well and have already made it to the playoffs this year. Nathan MacKinnon scored a big goal that won them their spot in the postseason, and he’s got a record-breaking 10 overtime wins so far in his career with his team. Even though they played without their captain Gabriel Landeskog all season, or used an incredible amount of 43 different players, nothing held them back from their success.
“Even though we’re going through tough times, our team is sticking together and doing their best,” said coach Jared Bednar. “That’s all we can do.”
This year, Colorado hockey team has been incredibly determined and succeeded in winning the Stanley Cup for the third time. Even when they were injured at the start of the year, they kept pushing and eventually got back into playoff position on January 20th. At one point, they were quite far behind the leader of their division, as they trailed by 14 points.
The Avalanche team is tied with Minnesota and Dallas who have both earned 98 points in the division. They are behind the Golden Knights from Vegas who have six more points than they do, even though they only have four games left to play while Avalanche has six.
Erik Johnson, an ice hockey defenseman, said that they were doing well especially considering he just came back from breaking his ankle. He added that even though the summer was short last year, they wanted to do their best to get into a good spot this time of year and it looks like things are working out so far.
The Colorado team is trying to become the third team since 2005 to win the Stanley Cup two times in a row. Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh have already achieved this by winning in 2020/2021 and 2016/2017 respectively. According to FanDuel Sportsbook, Colorado’s chances of repeating are rated at 700 out of 1000. This figure is lower than Boston Bruins who have a much better chance of winning at 380 out of 1000.
Colorado had a really bad season, with 429 players having to miss games due injuries. That’s the third-most in Avalanche history, behind only 2014-15 and 2010-11 teams. Pavel Francouz, Landeskog, Artturi Lehkonen and Josh Manson all missed some time because of different problems but they’ve all traveled now for the game on West Coast.
“It’s a great time for us to get together and build teamwork before we finish up for the season. Cale Makar and Darren Helm were not around when we won yesterday so hopefully all of our team members with injuries can be back soon,” said Bednar happily.
Colorado has been supported by great games from MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen when Landeskog wasn’t playing, plus Valeri Nichshkin and Makar were not there for much of the time.
This Tuesday, MacKinnon became the first Avalanche member to get 100 points since Joe Sakic did in 2006-07.
Rantanen is nearby another point too. His subsequent goal will be his 50th this season – something that hasn’t happened on an Avalanche team since Milan Hejduk in 2002-03.
Rantanen & Co. is doing well, winning 27 out of the 40 games played from Jan 4th until now. This data was provided by NHL Stats and they are super proud of it being second-most in the league over this time span! Rantanen mentioned that their success is due to their mentality and team spirit that has been present lately as well as playing within a set structure. They are on top of the world right now and very happy about their streak.
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