In a search for the defin­ing image of the cur­rent era of Avalanche hock­ey, the options begin and end with the franchise’s big three.

There’s Cale Makar chang­ing direc­tions and leav­ing a foe in his wake along the blue line. Mikko Ranta­nen redi­rect­ing the puck from the side of the net at near-impos­si­ble angles.

Then, of course, Nathan MacK­in­non with the puck on his stick and open ice in front of him.

Sir­iusXM radio host Jim Gor­don recent­ly said the Avs’ super­star cen­ter skates like he is angry at the ice. And there’s no deny­ing the speed and fury with which MacK­in­non charges toward an opponent’s net.

No oth­er sequence of events brings Col­orado fans to the edge of their seats more often. But for those tasked with try­ing to defend it, the sight of MacK­in­non gain­ing speed and mov­ing toward them invokes a dif­fer­ent set of emotions.

“Ter­ri­fy­ing,” Dal­las Stars goal­tender Jake Oet­tinger said. “Yeah, it’s ter­ri­fy­ing – him and (Con­nor) McDavid. They are like – do you know those things at the air­port that you can walk on but they’re mov­ing? It looks like those two are skat­ing on one of them. They just have that extra gear, and he’s on a dif­fer­ent plan­et right now.”

MacK­in­non is in the midst of the best offen­sive sea­son of his already Hock­ey Hall of Fame-wor­thy career. He has 32 goals and 89 points in 55 games. This pace (47 goals and 132 points) would eas­i­ly be new career-bests for a play­er who has fin­ished in the top three of the Hart Tro­phy vot­ing three times and looks like a strong bet to be a final­ist for a fourth time.

The dis­course about MacK­in­non ver­sus Niki­ta Kucherov (with McDavid and maybe Van­cou­ver defense­man Quinn Hugh­es also in the con­ver­sa­tion) could rage on for the next three months. What’s not up for debate is how oth­er play­ers around the league feel about MacK­in­non, and specif­i­cal­ly when he puts his unique blend of speed, skill and pow­er together.

“When he’s com­ing at you a bil­lion miles an hour and you see the ‘D’ back­ing up and pan­ick­ing a lit­tle bit, you know, it’s not a fun feel­ing for any­body,” Los Ange­les Kings goal­tender Cam Tal­bot said. “I can’t even imag­ine what the D‑men are think­ing, com­ing back and try­ing to accept that much speed.

“Nathan is def­i­nite­ly one of the pre­mier goal scor­ers. He skates like the wind. He’s got an unbe­liev­able snap­shot. He can rifle the slap shot from the flank as well. He can beat you in so many dif­fer­ent ways.”

MacKinnon’s abil­i­ty to knife through mul­ti­ple waves of defend­ers who are osten­si­bly set up specif­i­cal­ly with a plan to con­tain him was on dis­play ear­li­er this month at Madi­son Square Gar­den. He col­lect­ed a short pass from Makar just inside the Col­orado blue line as the Rangers set their 1–3‑1 defense against a breakout.

This hap­pens dozens of times per game. The idea for the defend­ing team is to make the attack­ing side either turn the puck over or dump it into offen­sive end from the neu­tral zone.

MacK­in­non dis­man­tled it with ease. He slipped between K’Andre Miller and Bar­clay Goodrow in the neu­tral zone with one quick deke and then used Braden Schnei­der as a screen to beat Jonathan Quick.

MacK­in­non is now tied for the League lead in points pic.twitter.com/ekI37WtdR2

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) Feb­ru­ary 6, 2024

“Speed kills in any sport. He’s got such great speed,” vet­er­an Avs defense­man Jack John­son said. “You have to be aware of where he is at all times. There’s lots of guys with great speed, but I don’t know how many guys oth­er than him and McDavid that can han­dle the puck at that speed. That’s usu­al­ly the dif­fer­ence. You have to know where they are and you have to see them wind­ing up so you have a chance to start back­ing up.”

That goal against the Rangers came at even strength, after New York had time to get its defen­sive struc­ture in place. It is the type of coast-to-coast tal­ly that is rare in the NHL because well-coached pro­fes­sion­al defens­es are so good at pre­vent­ing exact­ly what MacK­in­non pulled off.

McDavid has been the gold stan­dard as a one-man zone entry for years, and he’s the con­sen­sus fastest play­er in the league — both with and with­out the puck. MacK­in­non has found a way to close the gap and make that a two-per­son club.

The NHL has a new col­lec­tion of advanced stats that help mea­sure things like speed and shot veloc­i­ty. MacK­in­non has reached a sus­tained speed of 20-plus miles per hour 486 times this sea­son, per the NHL Edge data. That is 170 more than Tam­pa Bay’s Bray­den Point. McDavid is third at 292, albeit in sev­en few­er games.

MacK­in­non has also reached a sus­tained speed of 22-plus miles per hour 77 times. McDavid is next with 45.

“Fast, man. Just … fast,” Boston Bru­ins goalie Jere­my Sway­man said. “That’s a great exam­ple of a play­er that works on his game tire­less­ly. I’ve heard such great sto­ries. (Brad Marc­hand) is always telling me what he trains like and how seri­ous­ly he treats his body before games, after games. And obvi­ous­ly you see how he per­forms. That’s a play­er I’ve always looked up to, with how I car­ry myself and treat my body and lead the team.”

MacK­in­non brushed aside a ques­tion about the NHL Edge data ear­li­er this sea­son with a log­i­cal response — it’s because he’s the drop guy on the pow­er play. There is some truth here.

Because of how the Avs design their zone-entry strat­e­gy with the man advan­tage, with some­one send­ing a drop pass to MacK­in­non in the defen­sive zone, it allows him to “wind it up” and attack the four penal­ty killers at high speeds.

The drop pass has become an inte­gral strat­e­gy for most NHL teams over the past half-decade. It’s a direct response to teams becom­ing so pro­fi­cient at stop­ping zone entries despite hav­ing one less play­er on the ice.

Avs assis­tant coach Ray Ben­nett not­ed ear­li­er this month that Col­orado has the No. 1 suc­cess rate with pow­er-play zone entries in the NHL.

“I look real­ly smart, and it has zero to do with me,” Ben­nett said. “We run a sin­gle drop a lot with Nate for that rea­son, because of his speed and his abil­i­ty to make play­ers miss. I have to believe that if you’re a defend­er — for­ward or defense­man — in that sit­u­a­tion on the penal­ty kill, it’s got­ta be awful­ly intim­i­dat­ing to have him com­ing at you. So our suc­cess is often pred­i­cat­ed just sim­ply based on his abil­i­ty, his speed, his puck con­trol and his vision up the ice.

“We do some things tac­ti­cal­ly to try to help him, but it is very sin­gu­lar in his abil­i­ties to get us in the zone. And not just get in the zone but get into a sit­u­a­tion where either we have a rush shot oppor­tu­ni­ty or get into our set. It’s pri­mar­i­ly his abilities.”

There are oth­er play­ers who are great at help­ing their clubs get set up on the pow­er play. McDavid is an obvi­ous one, and the Oil­ers’ strat­e­gy looks a lot like the Avs. Some teams use two play­ers com­ing up the ice togeth­er. Oth­er clubs use mul­ti­ple passes.

The Avs do have a cou­ple of oth­er ideas to try if need­ed, but most of the time Plan A — give the puck to MacK­in­non and he’ll break into the zone before find­ing a team­mate — is the best plan.

MacKinnon’s abil­i­ty to make plays at that speed is one of the sport’s ulti­mate cheat codes.

“Real­ly, there’s not much you can do at the end of the day,” vet­er­an for­ward and long-time penal­ty killer Andrew Cogliano said. “Hope­ful­ly, you can make him pick a side and then hope­ful­ly get anoth­er guy that can help us make a stand to maybe cre­ate some pres­sure and maybe get a turnover.

“You try to gain as much ice as you can and just try not to get embar­rassed at that point. Two spe­cial play­ers (MacK­in­non and McDavid) who come at you with so much speed and inten­si­ty. You have no choice but to get ready and do every­thing you can to try and angle them in some sort of way. It is what it is and those are just the facts. They’re too fast and too strong.”

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