It was a full-team effort by the Avalanche in their latest victory, a 5-1 triumph over the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday in the second of a back-to-back. Truly, there was something special about the different roles and accomplishments several parts of the lineup played.

After all, this was Colorado’s last game before Friday’s 1 p.m. MT trade deadline. It’s a team looking for depth, and will likely add depth. But it’s also a team that, despite missing three key forwards and still needing more depth, got contributions from everywhere.

One of those depth pieces, Parker Kelly, is in the midst of a career year after having already signed a four-year extension for a respectable $1.7 million AAV that begins next season.

It sounds like that extension has been weighing heavily on his mind. Nathan MacKinnon let us in on the secret.

10 Takeaways

1. Kelly has 15 goals in 60 games. He’s scoring at a 20-goal pace and has basically evolved into everything that has made Logan O’Connor a fan favorite over the past half-decade. The quote from MacKinnon about Kelly’s contract extension may have been the highlight of all the postgame content from traveling media.

“[Parker Kelly] is always talking about how bad his contract is he signed,” MacKinnon jokingly told reporters. “He’s rattled about it.”

It was a joke, but it’s not entirely untrue. Kelly was worth a $1.7 million extension before ever scoring double-digit goals. And before that extension begins, he might genuinely hit 20 goals.

2. How did he get here? Kelly has eight goals in 21 games since Jan. 1, which ties him with Martin Necas for the second most on the Avs behind Brock Nelson (14). Kelly has one more than MacKinnon since then. And as we know, MacKinnon leads the NHL with 41.

3. And speaking of MacKinnon, he reached 100 points in his 59th game on Tuesday, accomplishing the feat in two fewer games than he did during his 140-point MVP campaign in 2023-24. That’s a franchise record.

MacKinnon reached the century mark for the fourth straight season after just missing it, or playing at a 100-point pace in each of the five seasons before that.

4. Nobody has more goals or points than Necas since the Olympic break. He has five goals, five assists, and 10 points in five games. Matt Boldy and Leon Draisaitl both also have 10 points, but with fewer goals.

5. This is the third time this season that Necas has recorded 10 points in a five-game stretch.

6. Let’s hear it for Gabe Landeskog, who has worked all year to the point where he no longer looks out of place on the Avalanche’s top line. This is a guy who needed a couple of months to even look like a comfortable NHLer again. He then needed time to consistently play top-six minutes. Now? He’s riding shotgun with two of the fastest skaters in the league, in MacKinnon and Necas, and is capable of playing 20+ minutes each night. It’s just like old times.

Landeskog has 24 points in his last 30 games since his sluggish start. He has six in five games since the Olympics.

7. Landeskog’s shot has been improving, and his timing is coming with it. The game in Anaheim was the second consecutive night that Landeskog scored a one-timer that beat the goalie clean.

8. Landeskog has a +7 rating since the Olympic break. That leads the NHL. He’s a +25 on the season now, and getting awfully close to matching, and even passing the +27 career-high he had in 2021-22.

9. That first power play, which ended with a Necas one-timer goal from the top of the circle, was solid work. It again showed what Colorado’s talented top unit could do if it were more consistent. When they got a second chance on the PP, I was looking to see if they could carry that momentum. They passed the puck well, but didn’t get many dangerous shots on goal to challenge Lukas Dostal.

The third PP opportunity was a disaster.

10. Congrats to Brett Kulak, who recorded his first point in an Avalanche uniform on the second Kelly goal.