Nathan MacKinnon’s run through this NHL post­sea­son will go down as one of the great­est in fran­chise his­to­ry, until his final performance.

Call it anoth­er Game 7 to for­get for the Avalanche’s peren­ni­al MVP candidate.

MacK­in­non — after a Col­orado-record 14 con­sec­u­tive games with a point to start the play­offs — record­ed zero points Fri­day as the Stars emerged with a 5–4 over­time victory.

MacK­in­non stat­ed pub­licly dur­ing the reg­u­lar sea­son that this year felt like his best chance to win the Avs a cham­pi­onship. He spoke with a somber tone Fri­day on a video con­fer­ence call after get­ting an evic­tion notice from the Edmon­ton bub­ble and mov­ing to 0–3 life­time in Game 7s.

“We’ve got to find a way to break through,” MacK­in­non said. “There are no moral vic­to­ries here. We came here to win and we didn’t get the job done.”

It’s unfair to pin the Avs’ post­sea­son exit entire­ly on MacK­in­non. But he didn’t pro­vide the same scor­ing threat as he nor­mal­ly does Fri­day. MacK­in­non entered the game lead­ing the play­offs with 62 shots on goal. In Game 7, he pro­duced just two shots through regulation.

Then again, MacK­in­non has been an absolute work­horse all post­sea­son. He played 27-plus min­utes on Fri­day and entered the game lead­ing all Col­orado for­wards in aver­age post­sea­son ice-time (21:24). In Game 7, it appeared fatigue might have final­ly caught up with the Avalanche star.

MacK­in­non did not offer up excuses.

“I know it’s not the Cup final or any­thing, but we felt like we could win and I still feel like we could have won every­thing, it’s just unfor­tu­nate,” MacK­in­non said.

MacK­in­non was bril­liant through­out the play­offs, with mul­ti-point out­ings in eight of his final 12 games. His 14-game points streak tied for the sec­ond-longest to begin a Stan­ley Cup play­offs in NHL history.

“In my opin­ion, he’s prob­a­bly the best play­er in the world right now,” Avalanche for­ward Vladislav Namest­nikov said. “To get to him every prac­tice, every game, was spe­cial. The things he does are unbe­liev­able. You look at how hard he works and all the guys fol­low him. He’s the leader.”

Avalanche coach Jared Bed­nar added: “We talk a lot about (MacK­in­non), I just think he hit anoth­er lev­el with his play in a lot of dif­fer­ent ways. He’s bor­der­line great all the time, but I think in this (post­sea­son), he was outstanding.”