The Col­orado Avalanche have three of the best play­ers in the world, but this team looks even more for­mi­da­ble when that trio gets a lot of help from their friends.

Valeri Nichushkin and Jonathan Drouin both had big nights to get the Avs to over­time, then the “Big Three” took care of it from there. Nathan MacK­in­non scored 32 sec­onds into over­time and the Avalanche fend­ed off the pesky New York Islanders 5–4 for its fifth win in six out­ings Tues­day night at Ball Arena.

“I thought we played great,” MacK­in­non said. “I thought we had a great start. I thought it was hon­est­ly a cou­ple unlucky break­downs … but I thought we real­ly out­played them for 60 minutes.”

MacKinnon’s goal, which was set up by Cale Makar and Mikko Ranta­nen, came after Nichushkin drew a penal­ty late in reg­u­la­tion. It was a three-point night for MacK­in­non and Makar, while Ranta­nen added two assists.

Nichushkin’s two goals and Drouin’s two points helped the Avs ral­ly from a deficit three times in this con­test, despite dom­i­nat­ing in both shots on goal (39–22) and shot attempts (91–44). Nichushkin’s sec­ond goal came on the pow­er play with 7:39 remain­ing in regulation.

Makar’s stick explod­ed on a one-timer from the top of the zone, but the puck went right to  MacK­in­non at the side of the net. He bumped it to Nichushkin, who turned it into an unortho­dox tic-tac-toe tally.

“He’s great,” MacK­in­non said. “He’s a beast. It’s fun just to watch him play because he’s so big and powerful.”

Jonathan Drouin has helped the Avs’ top pow­er-play unit over the past few weeks, and now he’s find­ing his way on the first line as well. Drouin helped set up Colorado’s sec­ond goal in this game, which occurred four sec­onds after a pow­er play expired.

Nichushkin bat­ted the puck across the goal line after a scram­bled play in front. Samuel Girard had the first shot after Drouin set him up. It was Girard’s first point in his sec­ond game since return­ing to the club after time in the NHL/NHLPA Play­ers Assis­tance Program.

The first goal from Nichushkin made it 3–2 Islanders, and then Drouin’s tal­ly evened the score momen­tar­i­ly. Drouin start­ed the play in the defen­sive zone with a pass to MacK­in­non. He car­ried it into the offen­sive zone, sent the puck to Ranta­nen and he hit Drouin trail­ing on the play with a wicked half slap-shot.

Drouin has 10 points in his past 10 games. Beyond the pro­duc­tion, the skill and smarts that made him an elite prospect and pro­duc­tive play­er in his ear­ly NHL days are show­ing up more fre­quent­ly. It would be a big deal for the Avs if Drouin can con­tin­ue to play well as Art­turi Lehko­nen gets clos­er to return­ing in the next few weeks.

“He’s earned (my) trust because he’s play­ing the game the right way, with and with­out the puck,” Avs coach Jared Bed­nar said. “He’s doing all the right things away from the puck, so I trust him to put in all types of sit­u­a­tions, up or down, and he’s play­ing well. He’s help­ing cre­ate offen­sive oppor­tu­ni­ties, for him­self and his linemates.”

The Avalanche played a strong first peri­od, save for a cou­ple of break­downs that left Col­orado trail­ing at the inter­mis­sion. Both Islanders goals came when a New York play­er got behind the home side’s defenses.

Col­orado had tilt­ed the ice in its favor for a cou­ple of shifts before the first one. Girard whiffed on a shot from near the top of the left cir­cle, then Pierre Eng­vall slipped behind him on the coun­ter­at­tack and scored.

Devon Toews erased the lead 32 sec­onds lat­er against his for­mer team. Makar danced his way into the offen­sive zone, then Logan O’Connor sent the puck from below the goal line out to the top of the zone for a wrist shot from Toews with plen­ty of traf­fic in front.

While the Avs were car­ry­ing the play, the Isles grabbed the lead with 32 sec­onds left in the first. MacK­in­non got tan­gled up with Scott May­field away from the play and took a penal­ty. Brock Nel­son scored 15 sec­onds lat­er when he split Makar and Toews at the blue line and went in alone on Georgiev.

Simon Holm­strom made it 3–1 just 1:09 into the sec­ond peri­od with a long-range shot that seemed to fool Georgiev. The fourth Isles goal was a fluky one — a shot by Alexan­der Romanov from the left point hit Jack Johnson’s skate and changed directions.

“I liked the way our team played,” Bed­nar said. “They cap­i­tal­ized on their chances, and we were hav­ing a tough time putting ours in the net, espe­cial­ly in the first peri­od. … We felt like if we kept play­ing the same way, fix a cou­ple things on the defen­sive side of it that we would give our­selves a chance.”

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