MacKinnon has goal, 3 assists, Avalanche end Hurricanes winning streak at 8

DENVER -- Nathan MacKinnon had a goal and three assists, and the Colorado Avalanche won 6-4 to end the Carolina Hurricanes’ eight-game winning streak on Saturday at Ball Arena.

Mikko Rantanen had two goals and an assist, and Artturi Lehkonen had a goal and an assist for the Avalanche (7-8-0), who have won two of their past six games. Cale Makar scored short-handed, and Alexandar Georgiev made 27 saves.

“Got to give 'Georgie' credit for the first period. He keeps us in the game at down one, and we made a handful of mistakes after that but our game started to come around,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “The intensity of our game and just the overall engagement, physically, emotionally, I think has gone up over the last little bit. And we're starting to find a little bit of a like a recipe for exactly what it's going to take for us to win with our current lineup.”

Jordan Martinook had two goals and an assist, and Martin Necas had a goal and an assist to extend his point streak to 9 games (seven goals, 13 assists) for the Hurricanes (10-3-0), who traveled to Denver on Saturday due to extreme winter weather on Friday. Seth Jarvis had two assists, and Spencer Martin made 23 saves in his season debut.

“The short-handed goal killed us because they were, I think, pretty flat. You can see what they were like once they got going,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour. “So that was the play of the game, and then the goal interference thing for me, that's the game, right? It's a one goal game, essentially. So those two kinds of things flip the game for us.”

Jack Drury gave the Hurricanes a 1-0 lead at 9:02 of the first period when he snapped Martinook’s centering pass over Georgiev’s blocker from just below the left hash mark.

Martinook extended the lead to 2-0 with a one-timer inside the left face-off circle at 4:37 of the second period.

“I've talked at length about confidence [being] a big thing, and whenever you see the puck go in, you just gain a little bit of confidence,” Martinook said. “It's nice to see them go in. Shout out to my son for making me wear my lucky golf socks. So thanks, Chase man.”

Makar cut the lead to 2-1 at 9:13 with a short-handed goal. He intercepted a cross-ice pass in the defensive zone, skated up ice, and fired a slap shot from the right circle far side under Martin’s blocker.

“Definitely very timely,” Georgiev said. “It was a little tough in the beginning as well, the first period and the beginning of the second, but then Cale got us going and we just kept rolling. Gave us confidence.”

Sam Malinski tied it 2-2 at 10:57 when he located the rebound of MacKinnon’s initial shot, cut across the crease, and lifted a backhand over Martin.

Necas responded to put Carolina ahead 3-2 with a power-play goal at 12:26, tapping in Jarvis’ cross-crease pass at the right post.

MacKinnon tied it 3-3 at 15:49, firing a wrist shot past Martin on a breakaway.

“It was great shot, obviously, but that was an impressive goal, and you could just see that those guys were feeling it,” Bednar said. “As a coach, without trying to kill those guys, you have to be able to recognize a little bit when you catch a little momentum and you can keep putting them out there and they're feeling it and they want to go, because they can make a big difference in a short amount of time.”

Lehkonen gave the Avalanche their first lead of the game, redirecting Rantanen’s point shot past Martin to make it 4-3 at 16:42. Carolina challenged the play for goalie interference but the call was upheld following video review.

Rantanen then made it 5-3 at 18:49 with a power-play goal, scoring with a wrist shot from the right circle.

“Cale scored a big one in the second. After that, I feel like it turned a little bit, and I could feel that they were a little bit tired when we were skating,” Rantanen said.

Martinook cut it to 5-4 at 2:50 of the third when he located the rebound of Necas’ shot and tucked it in around Georgiev’s outstretched pad.

“There's no excuses because we came out really well. But once we got into it, you could see we were just hanging on really, and you can't hang on against that team,” Brind’Amour said. “We had a couple guys [who] just didn't have it tonight. You could see we were just out of gas, and I kind of expected that and that's what happened the second half of the game.”

Rantanen scored an empty-net goal for the 6-4 final at 19:10.

NOTES: The four-point performance brought MacKinnon to 29 points (seven goals, 22 assists), two ahead of Minnesota Wild forward Kirill Kaprizov (nine goals, 18 assists) for most in the NHL. … MacKinnon recorded his 26th career four-point game and passed Peter Forsberg and Michel Goulet for sole possession of third-most in Avalanche/Nordiques history. … Hurricanes forward Andrei Svechnikov extended his point streak to eight games (four goals, six assists).