Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon of Halifax, Nova Scotia, had the first four-goal game of his National Hockey League career on Thursday. He achieved this with the Avalanche’s 6-4 win against the Ottawa Senators at Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado. Before Thursday, MacKinnon had six three-goal games in the NHL.
MacKinnon opened the scoring on the power play with an All-Canadian goal from Jonathan Drouin of Ste-Agathe, Quebec and Cale Makar of Calgary, Alberta at 2:43 of the first period. MacKinnon then tied the game at 18:28 of the first period with Valeri Nichushkin tying the score. MacKinnon scored his hat trick at 6:16 of the third period against Devon Toews of Abbotsford, British Columbia and Nichushkin to tie the game at 4-0, then scored into the empty net for a safety marker from Nichushkin to tie the score to finish with 23 seconds remaining in the game.
MacKinnon was one of two Canadians with a multi-point game. Makar had two assists.
In the 2023-24 season, MacKinnon recorded an NHL-leading 18 goals and 35 assists, accounting for 53 points. He is a +9 with 24 penalty minutes, 20 power play points, two game-winning goals, 149 shots on goal, 258 face-off wins, 29 blocked shots, 22 hits, 6 takeaways and 39 giveaways. MacKinnon’s game-winning goals in the 2023-24 season came in the Avalanche’s 6-4 win over the Carolina Hurricanes on October 21 and the Avalanche’s 6-4 win over the Calgary Flames on December 11.
With the win, the Avalanche improve to a record of 20 wins, 11 regulation losses and two overtime losses, a combined 42 points. They are in third place in the Central Division, one point behind the Winnipeg Jets.
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