The Kraken landed the opening haymaker and the Avalanche counterpunched and landed two devastating blows, but there are moves and countermoves still to come, with Game 4 on tap for Monday at Climate Pledge Arena. Nathan MacKinnon’s burst is something to behold /94AbTqhCIt It was quite the compliment and he meant it. After demolishing all comers in Game 3, MacKinnon opined that the Kraken are the hardest first-round opponent he’s ever faced in his career. In the key moments of a tied third period, it was a Toews setup to Rantanen off the rush and a spot of MacKinnon magic - two goals separated by just 88 seconds on the game clock - that made the difference. Then they seized the initiative in Game 3, with MacKinnon and Rantanen scoring a pair of goals each. Colorado’s superstars flipped the script in Game 2, dominating the final 40 minutes and escaping with an essential one-goal victory. On the back end, he elevated Bowen Byram to the top pair with superstar defender Cale Makar, dropping Devon Toews to play with Sam Girard.Įven as the Avalanche continued to bleed depth pieces up front - Valeri Nichushkin’s mysterious absence is the latest development - the top end of their lineup has been sharp enough to puncture the Kraken. He split up MacKinnon and his other superstar forward Mikko Rantanen, placing them on separate lines to fatten his forward group. This is pretty close to as dominant a performance as an individual hockey player can put together.īednar’s search for answers after his club’s Game 1 loss has yielded results. With about 5 minutes to play Nathan MacKinnon has 2 goals, 2 absolutely viral dekes, 5 shots on goal, 6 scoring chances and 13 shot attempts in Game 3. Since then, it’s been the MacKinnon show. Then Seattle jumped out to a 2-0 lead in Game 2 … Seattle rolled a balanced lineup and played a compact, disciplined game despite their defenders’ aggressiveness taking fourth-man’s ice.īy the end of Game 1, Seattle had made enough of an impression that they forced Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar to stare at the whiteboard, searching for answers and rethinking his lineup. They played shutdown defense, flummoxing the Avalanche’s heavy artillery with a quick, aggressive, structured game plan. Last week, in the Kraken’s first playoff appearance in franchise history, the second-year expansion club dominated the opening game. If MacKinnon taking over this series now feels inevitable, it certainly didn’t five periods ago when the Kraken had the Avalanche reeling. This sequence by MacKinnon was genuinely hilarious /ydSOMsambU
He’s left a trail of broken ankles in his wake, the way he did in Game 3, with a two-goal effort punctuated by one of the sickest individual shifts you’ll ever see in the Stanley Cup playoffs:
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