Nathan MacKinnon has always been a Ferrari on skates.
But could it be the Avalanche is now so loaded that the superstar center is merely a luxury item for a team lighting the lamp like a strobe light at a 1990s rave?
Avs offense — A
The folks inside the Grading the Week offices are no math majors, but these numbers are something:
Entering Friday night, the Avs were averaging a ridiculous 4.26 goals per game, nearly half a goal more than the next closest team (Florida Panthers, 3.80) in the NHL.
The crazy thing about that? Ol’ MacK had only two goals on the season prior to Friday’s home rout of the Detroit Red Wings. That’s right, two goals scored in 13 games played. (And, yes, 16 assists, but don’t stop us while we’re on a roll here.)
Ever crazier? The Avs were 4-5-1 when MacKinnon went down with a lower-body injury on Nov. 3. They then won seven of the team’s next nine games without him on the ice, scoring an average of 5.0 goals per contest.
And now that MacKinnon is back? The offensive machine keeps on purring.
MacKinnon had a highlight goal of his own in a 7-3 rout of the Rangers on Wednesday night. But those are coming from all over the place these days, like forward , and even .
It should be noted that another thing happened right around the time MacKinnon went on the shelf: Veteran defenseman Devon Toews returned to the ice for the first time this season.
The Avs were 10-3-1 in the first 14 games after Toews (four goals, 13 assists) rejoined the team, and 10-2-0 in the 12 games he shared the blue line with Makar, who had nine goals and eight assists during that time.
It seems having the NHL’s top defensive pairing may be the real engine driving the Avs’ offense. MacKinnon just adds another gear.
That just might come in handy next spring.
Chatfield’s Caden Logan — A+
The most beautiful moment of the Colorado sports year happened when almost nobody was looking.
It came in the immediate aftermath of Chatfield’s dramatic 41-34 win over previously unbeaten Erie in the Class 4A state football championship last Saturday at Empower Field at Mile High.
Erie quarterback Blake Barnett’s Hail Mary had just fallen incomplete in the Chatfield end zone, setting off a wild celebration on the Chatfield sideline as the Chargers basked in their high school’s first state football title since 2001.
Yet as many of his teammates leapt, chest-bumped and screamed into the Mile High air in jubilation, senior linebacker Caden Logan took a moment to put his arm around Barnett and console him as he knelt on the turf despondent in defeat.
Keep your head up. You’re going to do great things.
Asked afterward why he delivered that message at that moment, Logan gave a response that turned the Grading the Week staff into a puddle.
“They worked just as hard as we did. They’re a great team,” he said. “I can only imagine the feeling of heartache that he must’ve been going through. I hate that. So from a brother to another brother.”
Make them all like Caden Logan, friends. The world will be a better place for it.
