{"id":580217,"date":"2026-04-02T06:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T06:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/580217\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T06:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T06:54:07","slug":"avs-nathan-mackinnon-first-to-reach-50-goals-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/580217\/","title":{"rendered":"Avs’ Nathan MacKinnon first to reach 50 goals this season"},"content":{"rendered":"

DENVER — Colorado<\/a>‘s Nathan MacKinnon<\/a> became the first NHL player this season to reach 50 goals when his liner from up top beat Vancouver<\/a> goaltender Kevin Lankinen<\/a> early in the first period on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

He celebrated the goal with a little extra flair, too, sliding on his right knee while pumping his right glove. That was pretty much the highlight for the Avalanche, whose rally from a four-goal deficit fell short in an 8-6 loss<\/a> to the Canucks.<\/p>\n

It’s the second 50-goal campaign of MacKinnon’s career. He became the third player in Colorado\/Quebec history to notch multiple 50-goal seasons, joining Hall of Famers Joe Sakic (twice) and Michel Goulet (four).<\/p>\n

MacKinnon also joins Milan Hejduk (2002-03) as the only skaters in franchise history to hit the 50-goal mark first during an NHL season.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/p>\n

MacKinnon tied Tampa Bay<\/a>‘s Nikita Kucherov<\/a> for second with 121 points. They are four behind league leader Connor McDavid<\/a> of Edmonton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old MacKinnon turned in his fourth straight season of 110 or more points.<\/p>\n

“That’s where he’s gotten his production to over the last handful of seasons — high expectations,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said before the game.<\/p>\n

After the game, Bednar was less than thrilled with his team’s play even if they had a late surge that saw them tie it up.<\/p>\n

“If you want to hand out badges for good effort and stuff like that — I think we’re beyond that at this time of year,” Bednar said. “If we’re making excuses for that performance, it’s going to be a short run.”<\/p>\n

Asked what went wrong in the opening two periods — falling behind 6-2 at one point and pulling goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood<\/a> — Bednar simply said: “It’s too long of list.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER — Colorado‘s Nathan MacKinnon became the first NHL player this season to reach 50 goals when his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-580217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}