Cale Makar notched his first career hat trick and added an assist, Nathan MacKinnon had a goal and three assists to extend his home point streak to 31 games, and the Colorado Avalanche beat the Detroit Red Wings 7-2 in Denver on Wednesday night.
MacKinnon tied Mario Lemieux and Bryan Trottier for the fourth-longest home point streaks in NHL history. He can tie Guy Lafleur for third all-time Friday night against Minnesota.
MacKinnon, who has a five-game goal streak, took the NHL points lead with 109, breaking a tie with Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov.
Jean-Luc Foudy scored his first NHL goal, Jonathan Drouin had a goal and an assist, Artturi Lehkonen also scored, Mikko Rantanen added four assists and Alexandar Georgiev turned away 27 shots for Colorado.
The Avalanche won after a busy day of trading. They sent defenseman Bowen Byram to Buffalo for center Casey Mittelstadt and dealt forward Ryan Johansen to Philadelphia for defenseman Sean Walker.
Robbi Fabbri and David Perron scored for Detroit. Alex Lyon had 35 saves before being replaced by James Reimar, who stopped 12 shots.
The game was tied 2-all after a busy first period before Colorado pulled away with three unanswered goals in the second.
Lehkonen made it 3-2 at 8:49, his 10th goal of the season. Makar got his second of the night when he scored on a backhand at 16:12.
Makar completed his hat trick with a power-play shot from the point at 19:26. It was his 17th of the season. Makar and Sandis Ozolinsh are the only defenseman to record a hat trick for the Avalanche since the team moved to Colorado.
Drouin added his 12th of the season at 7:12 of the third period to give Colorado a four-goal lead, and Foudy connected at 15:25.
Fabbri scored on the Red Wings’ first shot 1:48 on a power play into the game, his 16th of the season, and Makar tied it at 5:15 of the first. Perron’s 13th of the year gave Detroit a 2-1 lead at 13:30, and MacKinnon scored six seconds into a power play at 17:07.
MacKinnon now has consecutive 40-goal seasons for the first time in his career.
–Field Level Media
