SEATTLE — Ask Nathan MacKinnon after any Avalanche loss this season about the team’s performance that night, and he’ll downplay defeat.
With a stubborn, protective loyalty toward the perpetually bruised Avs — his Avs — he’ll reiterate that it’s a long season. That losses happen. That he’s not concerned about what a singular loss means in the grand scheme of 82. Knowing this has been a more obstacle-clogged season than last, he has aimed to remain relentlessly upbeat.
As he held court at his locker-room stall after a resounding display of his individual virtuosity Saturday night, the 10-year Avalanche center stayed optimistic but did share a big-picture takeaway from three playoff games, crediting the Kraken. “This is definitely the hardest first round I’ve been in,” MacKinnon said, knowing there’s considerable distance and difficulty remaining in a series the Avs lead 2-1.
“Sometimes the last few years, we’ve been the top seed. And we’ve not gotten easy teams by any means, but I think this Seattle team’s a 100-point team, and they’re really good. We’re going to have to continue to be our best to beat them.”
Colorado is a Game 4 win away from a stranglehold on the series, but earning a lead has been a battle of its own. After dropping Game 1 at home, both Avalanche wins were comebacks. Both were tied entering the third period.
That’s practically a 3-0 series deficit compared to the recent first-round adversity MacKinnon and the Avs have faced. Over the last five years (including the start of this series), Colorado is 18-3 in the opening round of the playoffs, with sweeps the last two seasons and five-game waltzes the previous two.
The Kraken still aren’t showing signs of slinking back into the sea. Just when it seemed like they finally were in Game 3, the Kraken scored twice in a jarring 19 seconds that made Climate Pledge Arena erupt enough to maybe shake Mt. Rainier.
That would cause an avalanche, of course.
“Compared to the first four periods of the series (when) we were getting outplayed really badly, and it was a little harder to turn things around in Game 2 … we were playing really well in the second (period),” MacKinnon said. “Tough 19-20 seconds there. That’s playoff hockey. Things can change quick.”
MacKinnon, correctly, was steadfast in that moment: The Avs were outplaying the Kraken, even in the minutes preceding the consecutive Seattle goals. When Colorado scored twice to tie Game 2, you could feel the tremble for several shifts beforehand. That felt inevitable. This didn’t. So MacKinnon proceeded with confidence that the Kraken burst was a well-earned blip by them. Nothing else.
That confidence was evident in his game-winning goal in the third period.
Reliving the goal itself isn’t enough. It was a series-shifting shift. MacKinnon juked multiple Kraken defenders with the puck. The first time after he left Jesper Froden in the dust with a spin move, his shot missed the target by inches. The second time, he shimmied and side-stepped Ryan Donato. He didn’t miss again.
“Looks easy when those guys are playing like that, but it’s really not,” Andrew Cogliano said. “Nate, that’s probably why he’s the best player in the world at times.”
“He was the difference maker that we’ve come to expect,” coach Jared Bednar said. “In big games, in must-win games.”
But MacKinnon downplayed the goal, too.
“Just faked a guy out and managed to find some net over (Philipp Grubauer’s) shoulder,” he said, shrugging. “… No matter how they go in, they all feel great.”
Especially great when they silence a roaring crowd, though, right?
“It’s fun. I think scoring in the playoffs on the road is awesome,” MacKinnon said. “It’s a cool feeling.”
The Avs went 9-1 on the road in the playoffs last year. With the Game 3 win spoiling Seattle’s historic night, they’ve won a franchise record 12 consecutive road games dating back to the regular season. They also have a knack for these come-from-behind wins in the playoffs. It doesn’t seem to matter that Seattle has slithered into Alexandar Georgiev’s net for the first goal in all three games.
“Sometimes we play better down one,” MacKinnon said. “Especially last year. I think we had 10, 11 comeback (playoff) wins. This year we have two out of three. So it would be nice to get some leads here and control the game that way, but when we’re down one I feel like we play really aggressive.”
That’s largely a byproduct of the explosive star power of MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Mikko Rantanen — and particularly the fury of MacKinnon, who helped proved again in Game 3 that if all three are buzzing, the Avalanche can win any game.
“They make a lot of money,” Cogliano said, “but they deserve it.”
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