Bo Byram stopped himself. Marveling at Nathan MacKinnon’s season, he didn’t want to go so far as to jinx anything.
“He missed a bit of time there, which is too bad,” Byram said Monday before the Avalanche departed for San Jose. “But I think he’s on pace to — actually, never mind. I don’t want to say that.”
Byram can rest easy. MacKinnon has reached 100 points in a season for the first time in his illustrious career, and he did it with an overtime breakaway goal to beat the Sharks 4-3 and move Colorado into the division lead for the first time in months.
By earning one point before overtime, the Avalanche (46-24-6) clinched a playoff spot for the sixth consecutive year. By earning the second, they pulled into a three-way tie with Dallas and Minnesota at 98 points. But the Avs have played one fewer game than the Stars and Wild, giving them the highest point percentage.
One milestone hunt ends, another stalls: MacKinnon is the Avalanche’s first player to reach 100 points since Joe Sakic in 2006-07. He pulled it off at the end of a frenetic overtime period with more changes of possession than an ordinary OT.
At one point, Mikko Rantanen missed the target on a 3-on-2, and the puck sledded along the boards for a San Jose 2-on-0 the other way. But Alexandar Georgiev made a stunning save, and moments later, an Erik Karlsson giveaway set up MacKinnon’s third point of the night. Adding to the urgency in overtime was the recent wall blocking Colorado from first place. The team missed opportunities to take the division lead twice in the last two weeks, and San Jose erased a 3-1 deficit in the third period to endanger the Avs this time.
MacKinnon is up to 36 goals with six games remaining. Rantanen, meanwhile, remains at 49 after a game filled with good chances including a shot off the crossbar.
Seven’s a crowd: The Avs traveled their four injured players to California this week, but that was only the start. Cale Makar and Darren Helm were both ruled out with lower-body injuries, so Colorado needed to call up forward Ben Meyers from the AHL to join the lineup. Kurtis MacDermid filled in as the sixth defenseman with Makar out. Brad Hunt, who cleared waivers Saturday, was never reassigned to the Eagles, so he also remained with the NHL roster as a healthy scratch.
That meant Hunt, Makar, Helm, Gabriel Landeskog, Artturi Lehkonen, Josh Manson and Pavel Francouz were all with the team in San Jose but merely watching. That’s a playoffs-sized fan club: After the trade deadline, the league’s 23-man active roster limit is lifted, so the Avs can carry as many players as they want down the stretch without using injured reserve.
Meyers’ misleading drought: The former Golden Gopher has been proficient at getting into scoring positions, which he displayed multiple times in San Jose in his first time on NHL ice since early March. But once again, he wasn’t rewarded for his efforts. The snake-bit rookie has gone 31 consecutive NHL games without scoring since his October goal in Minnesota, despite an expected goals rate exceeded 54%.
