A few minutes after Colorado Avalanche coach Jared Bednar addressed the media Wednesday night, a couple of Washington Capitals were shuffling toward the team bus. They were unknowingly helping to prove a point Bednar had just made.
The Capitals were filing out of Ball Arena not long after Nathan MacKinnon authored a virtuoso performance against them. They were a desperate team, but MacKinnon eviscerated them with his second four-goal, five-point game in 34 days.
Washington’s players were getting on a bus, which would take them to Denver International Airport and then onto a plane headed for Dallas. Bednar had just spoken for nearly 12 minutes, much of it about MacKinnon’s brilliance.
He spoke four words that might sum up MacKinnon and his influence on the Avalanche better than anyone has at any point in his decorated career: We get in late.
“Most teams are on the road and you’re moving cities,” Bednar said. “We get done with a game, and most teams are on the bus in 20 minutes, on the plane in an hour and they’re flying to wherever they’re going. And they get in early.
“We get in late.”
MacKinnon has earned a reputation throughout his career as one of the hardest-working players in professional sports. Beast, animal, maniac — those are all terms of endearment others have used to describe MacKinnon’s work ethic away from the ice.
He has been one of the best players in the world for the past six seasons, with four top-five finishes in the Hart Trophy voting. This season, MacKinnon has found another level.
MacKinnon has credited his off-ice work, but he’s also typically reluctant to speak about it in much detail. Bednar did not get into the specifics about what MacKinnon does, but he did pull the figurative curtain back a little Wednesday night.
“Nate has a routine after the game that he does at home, on the road — it doesn’t matter, because that’s what makes him ready for the next game,” Bednar said. “As his teammates, some guys have followed suit and they’re doing it. He’s pushing other guys to do it, which makes us better.
“As a coach, you just go along with it. I sit at my computer and work for an hour after the game before we get on the bus. Instead of getting in at 1 (a.m.), we get in at 2. It works for him, and he’s leading us. So whatever works for him.”
MacKinnon has 30 goals and 82 points through 48 games. He, his idol-turned-pal Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid are the only players to produce 82 points in the first 48 games of a season this century.
One of MacKinnon’s greatest strengths is his engine. He leads all forwards in time on ice this season. He has reached 20 miles per hour on the ice 437 times, according to NHL Edge data. The next-closest player, Brayden Point, has 286.
He has reached 22 miles per hour 69 times. Connor McDavid is second, with 38.
“What he’s doing this year, he’s really consistent with it,” Bednar said, noting that MacKinnon has always been the hardest-working player since the coach arrived in Denver. “I’m talking about going from great to elite habits, or from elite to super-elite habits off the ice. He’s found something with his desire to get better and just his drive and his education of his off-ice training. He’s always looking for an edge. What he’s found is clearly working for him.
“It starts with all of his off-ice stuff. It’s relentless. It’s consistent. It’s dialed in.”
MacKinnon has found a way to match McDavid’s speed, but he also combines that with prime-era Alex Ovechkin power. Players bounce off him while he’s carrying the puck like the largest-sized guy in the Nintendo “Ice Hockey” game from the late 1980s.
Tom Wilson, one of the NHL’s most physical players, stands at 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds. He collided with MacKinnon in the slot Wednesday night — while MacKinnon was attempting a one-timer — and the end result was Wilson flat on his back in the Washington crease.
“He’s in the discussion for the best player on the planet. He’s a linchpin piece for us,” Avalanche general manager Chris MacFarland said recently on Frank Seravalli’s podcast “Frankly Speaking.” “I think this year he’s just been on one of those benders, which I think the players of his ilk — and there are a number of them in whatever sport — when they get on one, you just kind of ride that wave. I think it’s a credit to Nathan. It’s not a surprise.
“He’s dialed in, in terms of his preparation, unlike any other player that I’ve had the good fortune to be around, with how he takes care of himself off the ice. Not just during the season, it’s a 12-month thing for him.”
Bednar noted that MacKinnon’s performance in the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs, when he did not win the Conn Smythe Trophy but did accept whatever assignments the club needed from him — including focusing on checking McDavid instead of scoring in a four-game sweep of Edmonton — is tough to beat in his appreciation for the franchise center.
He also revealed that he was worried about how the team’s top players would react when last season began after winning the Stanley Cup the year before. MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and others all had career years, despite the Cup hangover and various injuries to key players.
“I think his off-the-ice things go up every year,” Rantanen said. “I don’t even know if it is even possible, but that’s how it feels with how dialed in with everything he does.”
This season has been something different. MacKinnon has at least one point in every home game (24) — the longest streak to start a season in franchise history. He has at least one point in 32 of the past 33 games.
He became the second player in the past quarter-century to have multiple four-goal games in a season, joining Ovechkin, who had two the year he scored 65 times.
Gabriel Landeskog remains the captain of this team, and it’s easy to see why when listening to the elite players speak of him with such reverence. But what Bednar described Wednesday night revealed how and why MacKinnon drives this team.
“The focus is on the endgame, but he’s really dialed into the process of what he thinks is going to lead us to success,” Bednar said. “He’ll challenge the coaches, other players. It’s great. I find it to be exactly what I like too, because he’ll push me. He’ll push our staff, other players, everyone around him. He’ll challenge you, and then you make sure you know exactly what you’re talking about and what you’re doing and that the details are tight because he expects them to be and because of what he’s giving to the team. If he’s going to do all of this stuff in order for our team to have success, he expects everyone else around him to do the same.”
He sets a nearly impossible standard to match, but others do their best to try. The Avalanche will be in Washington to face the Capitals in a little less than three weeks.
It’s the second-to-last game of the longest road trip of the season. The Avs will play at Capital One Arena, then head for the airport to fly to Tampa.
They’ll get in late.
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