On Monday night, the Colorado Avalanche notched their sixth win in a row beating the Chicago Blackhawks 3-0 in Denver, but it was a personal milestone that took the headlines for one of the Avalanche players. It may have taken most of the game, but just 31 seconds into the third period Artturi Lehkonen tipped in his 27th goal of the season off a Nathan MacKinnon shot.
The MacKinnon assist was his 1,000th NHL point – one game after tallying his 100th point on the season against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Reaching the 1,000-point mark, MacKinnon becomes the 100th player all-time reach the mark and the 10th active player to join the club.
MacKinnon joins Sidney Crosby (1,664), Alexander Ovechkin (1,600), Evgeni Malkin (1,338), Patrick Kane (1,324), Anze Kopitar (1,262), Steven Stamkos (1,178), Claude Giroux (1,106), John Tavares (1,095) and Connor McDavid (1,064) as the only active players with 1,000 career points.
He also becomes just the third player in Avalanche/Québec Nordiques history to reach the mark all with the franchise, joining Joe Sakic (1,641) and Peter Stastny (1,048).
Just under three minutes after tallying his 1,000th career point, MacKinnon added another feeding Martin Necas for his 22nd goal of the season giving MacKinnon 1,001 career points – just three points back of Brian Propp for 99th on the NHL’s all-time list.
He now sits second all-time on the Avalanche’s franchise list for points behind Joe Sakic (1,015) and third when you add in the Nordiques’ franchise list. As for his draft season, MacKinnon is the only player to reach the 1,000-point mark from the 2013 NHL Draft with Aleksander Barkov (771) being a distant second in that draft class.
This season, MacKinnon has 102 points in just 65 games – averaging 1.57 points per game. As for his career he’s averaging 1.17 points per game with 1,001 points in 856 regular season games. Based on his season average, MacKinnon could potentially finish the season with 1,029 career points which would land him tied for 90th with Brian Leetch on the NHL’s all-time list.
-1738043824-q80.webp "Will Borgen Feels Contract Extension With Rangers Was A ‘No-Brainer’")
