Makar's 1st hat trick helps Avalanche ease past Red Wings

DENVER -- Cale Makar had his first NHL hat trick, and Nathan MacKinnon extended his season-opening home point streak to 31 games for the Colorado Avalanche in a 7-2 win against the Detroit Red Wings at Ball Arena on Wednesday.

Makar also had an assist, and MacKinnon had a goal and three assists to give him 69 points (26 goals, 43 assists) during his streak, which is tied with Bryan Trottier (1981-82) and Mario Lemieux (1995-96) for the fourth-longest home point streak in NHL history. Wayne Gretzky owns the NHL record for the longest season-opening home point streak at 40 games (1988-89).

"That's one of the reasons why our team's finding success. He's just showing up every single night,” Makar said of MacKinnon. “It's all you can ask from a guy for that. He's just playing incredible for us on the road and at home right now.”

Mikko Rantanen had four assists, and Jonathan Drouin had a goal and an assist for the Avalanche (39-20-5), who have won four of their past five games. Alexandar Georgiev made 27 saves.

“I thought the guys played great tonight,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “We definitely got better as the game went on. I loved our jump in our offensive game the whole night, but we had a couple like big breakdowns in the first period, and it cost us.”

Robby Fabbri and David Perron scored for the Red Wings (33-23-6), who lost their third in a row. Alex Lyon allowed five goals on 40 shots before being replaced by James Reimer (12 saves) at the start of the third period.

“Overmatched and overwhelmed a little bit tonight,” Detroit coach Derek Lalonde said. “I just don't like how we gave their top guys two easy ones in the second period because they were obviously buzzing tonight. I think that second period got out of hand there.”

Fabbri scored a power-play goal to give Detroit a 1-0 lead at 1:48 of the first period when Alex DeBrincat’s one-timer went off his skate near the right post.

Makar tied it 1-1 at 5:15 when his wrist shot from just inside the blue line deflected off the stick of Detroit forward Andrew Copp and past the right leg of Lyon.

“It was an outstanding game from start to finish from him on both sides of the puck, and he got rewarded for it,” Bednar said of Makar, who has four goals in his past two games after going 11 games without one. “I told you it was a blip on the radar for Cale, right? It's not like he wasn't getting any chances. His puck play struggled for a couple games. When he got it back, he started producing chances again and helping his linemates and teammates produce chances.”

Perron gave the Red Wings a 2-1 lead at 13:30 when he lifted his own rebound over Georgiev’s blocker from the edge of the crease.

MacKinnon tied it 2-2 on the power play at 17:07, one-timing Rantanen’s one-touch centering pass under the glove of Lyon for his 40th goal of the season.

“That's a team that can expose you defensively,” Detroit defenseman Ben Chiarot said. “Obviously, they did that today. It's a lot to work on, a lot to correct. We’ve got to get that desperation back that we had. It's obviously not there right now, and we’ve got to get it back in a hurry.”

Artturi Lehkonen put Colorado in front 3-2 at 8:49 of the second period with a one-timer off Rantanen’s pass from behind the net.

Makar extended the lead to 4-2 at 16:12. He collected the rebound of Rantanen’s shot, waited for Lyon to react and tucked a backhand shot through the five-hole.

“He's so amazing,” MacKinnon said of Makar. “I think he's had a lot of opportunities to get hat tricks, for sure. Tough to get hat tricks, you know. I don't have very many myself.”

Makar completed the hat trick and made it 5-2 on the power play at 19:26 with a point shot that trickled through Lyon.

“I've never had a hat trick since before junior, and it's been a long, long time before that,” said Makar, who played his 297th NHL game. “I've had a lot of two-goal games, but yeah, it was just a different vibe tonight. It was pretty cool.”

Drouin pushed it to 6-2 at 7:12 of the third period when he finished a 2-on-1 with Miles Wood. He scored from the left circle with a high shot to the far side.

Jean-Luc Foudy scored his first NHL goal at 15:25 for the 7-2 final. He was playing his 10th game.

NOTES: Makar became the fourth defenseman in Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques history to score a hat trick (Sandis Ozolinsh, Dec. 6, 1999; Uwe Krupp, March 1, 1995; Bryan Fogarty, Dec. 1, 1990). This was his ninth multigoal game, which moved him past Ozolinsh for the most by a defenseman in franchise history, and his fourth four-point game, tying Ozolinsh for the franchise record. Makar (82) became the fastest active defenseman to reach 80 goals. The last defenseman to score that many prior to his 300th game was Phil Housley, who did it in 296 games on March 19, 1986. … Makar, MacKinnon, and Rantanen became the first three Avalanche players to each have four or more points in a game since Peter Forsberg, Valeri Kamensky, and Claude Lemieux did it Nov. 18, 1997. … Rantanen (52 assists) became the second Finland-born player in NHL history to have three consecutive 50-assist seasons (Jari Kurri, nine seasons, 1981-90). … MacKinnon became the fourth player in Avalanche/Nordiques history to have three or more 40-goal seasons (Michel Goulet, seven; Joe Sakic, five; Peter Stastny, five). … It was Colorado coach Jared Bednar’s 600th NHL game. … The Avalanche acquired forward Casey Mittelstadt from the Buffalo Sabres and defenseman Sean Walker from the Philadelphia Flyers in separate trades Wednesday.