MacKinnon's Four-Point Night Leads Avalanche Past Lightning 6-3

Friday Fun

Nathan MacKinnon posted a goal and three assists to help the Avalanche defeat the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-3 at Ball Arena on Friday. Devon Toews, Nazem Kadri, Fedor Svechkov and Artturi Lehkonen all added tallies for Colorado, while Martin Necas posted a goal and two assists. In net for the Avs, Mackenzie Blackwood stopped 31 of the 34 shots he faced.

With the win, the Avalanche improved to 6-4-1.

How It Happened

Blackwood's first save of the game came 24 seconds into the contest, when he denied Jake Guentzel's left-circle chance.

Devon Toews opened the scoring at 1:08 of the first period with his third goal of the season via a left-circle shot off the rush set up by Martin Necas' cross-ice feed.

At 3:15 of the opening frame, Blackwood made a huge save on Anthony Cirelli's net-front backhand shot.

Kadri doubled Colorado's lead on the power play at 5:52 of the opening frame with his first goal of the season via a left-circle one-timer set up by T.J. Hughes' pass. With his second point of the game, MacKinnon became the fourth-fastest player (1,069 games) to reach 1,300 combined regular-season and playoff points, behind Nikita Kucherov (1,035), Sidney Crosby (1,023) and Connor McDavid (847).

At 11:18 of the first, Blackwood made a key save on Max Crozier's right-circle shot off the rush.

Svechkov gave the Avs a 3-0 lead at 24 seconds of the middle frame with his second goal of the season when he batted the rebound created by his original shot out of midair from below the left goal line.

The Lightning made it 3-1 with a power-play goal at 8:13 of the second period when Guentzel scored from the left doorstep.

Lehkonen gave the Avs a 4-1 lead at 13:57 of the second period with his ninth goal of the season via a left-circle one-timer set up by MacKinnon's low-to-high feed.

At 16:26 of the middle frame, Blackwood denied Gage Goncalves' net-front redirect to keep Colorado up by three.

Guentzel scored to make it 4-2 with a shot from the right doorstep at 19:17 of the second period.

The Avalanche took a 5-2 lead at 4:18 of the third period when MacKinnon scored his seventh goal of the season via a shot from the left slot off the rush after he was sprung by Lehkonen's neutral-zone backhand feed.

Charle-Eduard D'Astous made it 5-3 for Tampa Bay with a slap shot from the slot at 15:13. 

At 17:19 of the third period, Necas gave the Avs a 6-3 lead with his sixth goal of the season via an empty-net goal.

Next Up

The Avalanche travels to face the Nashville Predators on Sunday at 6 p.m. MDT on Altitude, Altitude+, Altitude Sports Radio 92.5 FM and the Altitude Sports Radio App.