MacKinnon extends home point streak to 29, Avalanche ease past Stars

DENVER -- Nathan MacKinnon had a goal and an assist to extend his season-opening home point streak to 29 games for the Colorado Avalanche in a 5-1 win against the Dallas Stars at Ball Arena on Tuesday.

MacKinnon has 61 points (23 goals, 38 assists) during his home point streak, which is the sixth-longest in NHL history and the longest since Mario Lemieux’s 31-game streak in 1995-96. Wayne Gretzky owns the NHL record for the longest season-opening home point streak at 40 games (Los Angeles Kings, 1988-89).

"It is remarkable. We've talked about that,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “I just think it's the consistency that he's playing with on a nightly basis, and I'll say this, he was incredible tonight.”

Cale Makar had an assist to become the highest scoring defenseman in Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques history. Makar (308 points; 78 goals, 230 assists) passed Tyson Barrie (307 points; 75 goals, 232 assists).

“I saw that the other day, that he tied Tyson Barrie, and I was just like thinking about his age (25) and how much hockey yet he still has in front of him,” Bednar said. “It's a pretty good franchise. They've had some pretty good defensemen play here for long periods of time, and so to be at the top of the list already, that's pretty impressive because he's got so much hockey left to be played, probably his best hockey yet to be played.”

Mikko Rantanen, Artturi Lehkonen and Andrew Cogliano each had a goal and an assist for the Avalanche (36-19-5), who have won three of their past five games (3-1-1). Alexandar Georgiev made 33 saves.

“Lots to like,” Bednar said. “Checked a bunch of boxes when it comes to like our competitiveness. The hard defending was good. I thought [Georgiev] was excellent tonight. That's one of the best games I've seen him play in a long time.”

Logan Stankoven scored, and Jake Oettinger made 22 saves for the Stars (35-17-9), who are 1-3-1 in their past five games and were coming off a 3-2 overtime loss to the New York Islanders on Monday.

“Considering the back-to-back the situation, I thought our guys battled hard and worked hard. I thought there was a handful moments in the game where their speed overwhelmed us, and they were opportunistic,” Dallas coach Pete DeBoer said. "I think our guys didn't quit. They worked hard. I think you got to have short memory in this league and get ready for the next game, and the next game is a real important one.”

Stankoven gave the Stars a 1-0 lead at 1:00 of the first period when he one-timed Wyatt Johnston’s pass off Georgiev’s stick.

“It's a great test whenever you get to play them,” Oettinger said. “I think if we go where we want to go, we're going to probably have to go through those guys.”

Joel Kiviranta tied it 1-1 at 2:08, one-timing Cogliano’s cross-ice pass.

“They scored first. We were able to respond pretty quickly, and then I thought all parts of the game were good tonight,” Cogliano said. “Defensively, it seemed like we were really strong in our end on the cycle and limiting chances to the middle of the ice. PK [had] two big kills, power play gets one. I think all parts of our game were going tonight."

Rantanen put the Avalanche in front 2-1 at 5:58 when he located the rebound from MacKinnon’s initial shot and one-handed the puck around Oettinger.

“Anytime you can get the lead is great. Sometimes it's easier to play with the lead, sometimes it's harder,” Colorado defenseman Devon Toews said. “Just depends how the game goes, but at the end of the day, the team that scores most goals wins the game. So, anytime you can have a lead is better than not having it, for sure.”

Cogliano extended the lead to 3-1 at 7:09 of the second period when he kept the puck on a 2-on-1 with Kiviranta and scored with a snap shot from the left face-off circle. Chris Wagner won a puck battle in the neutral zone to spring Cogliano on the rush.

“I thought [Wagner] did a good job of kind of stopping on the puck, and it squirted out. I made a decent shot,” Cogliano said. “Happens once in a while.”

MacKinnon made it 4-1 at 7:58, cutting to the net from the right corner before backhanding the puck over Oettinger's blocker.

Lehkonen scored a power-play goal to make it 5-1 at 14:15 of the second period, tapping in a pass from Jonathan Drouin.

NOTES: MacKinnon’s assist tied him with Peter Forsberg (538) for third on the Avalanche/Nordiques all-time assist list. … MacKinnon extended his point streak to seven games (three goals, 10 assists). … Besides points, Makar is the franchise leader for defensemen in goals (78), game-winning goals (19), multipoint games (82), and multiassist games (47). … Stars defenseman Jani Hakanpää returned to the lineup after missing the previous five games with an upper-body injury. He was minus-2 in 18:11 of ice time.