Wednesday night's 9-3 rout featured a surgical and full-team effort by the Avalanche as they officially swept their season series against their Western Conference foes the Los Angeles Kings. In total, 11 players got on the scoresheet, while seven skaters recorded multi-point outings, the Avs were perfect on special teams and utilized their depth.
Nathan MacKinnon put on a show for the buzzing crowd at Ball Arena, who were electric all the way until the final whistle. In the memorable victory, MacKinnon - whose parents were in attendance - posted a five-point outing to match his career-best and was rained on by caps from the crowd as the 26-year-old notched his third-career hat trick.
But it wasn't just MacKinnon who seized the meaningful moment, Cale Makar posted four-points to match with his career high, while Nicolas Aube-Kubel (2G), Valeri Nichushkin (2G), and Andre Burakovsky (1G, 1A) each appended on their career-best seasons as well. In net, Darcy Kuemper picked up his fifth-straight win in as many starts with a 29-save performance.
"Wednesday night, late game you never know what's going on," Avalanche Head Coach Jared Bednar said. "But we've had some really good crowds. A few games ago the crowd was chanting before the anthem even started and tonight, they were doing the same thing. You can feel that when you go on the bench as a coach. As a player, they're into it. We wanted to make sure that we had a real good game after having a couple of off games in Winnipeg and Edmonton [last weekend]. Our guys feel that and that's why our record is so good at home."
