DALLAS — Nathan MacKinnon’s eyes flashed, and his brow narrowed. Suddenly, you had just a tiny sense of what it felt like to be a third-pairing defenseman with this beast of a human barreling down on you. The question was simple, but the answer was anything but.
MacKinnon’s Colorado Avalanche had just suffered what he called “definitely” the most gutting loss of his career, a shocking — a word we throw around far too often in the sports world, but the only printable one that fits here — 4-2 Game 7 loss to the rival Dallas Stars in which they blew a 2-0 third-period lead. It was a game the Avalanche had complete control of, and it was a flabbergasting collapse.
That it was Mikko Rantanen who scored three of those third-period goals and assisted on the fourth made it either a fairy tale or a horror flick, depending on who you were rooting for. But if you were MacKinnon, did the fact that it was Rantanen — your close friend, your linemate for nearly a decade, your running buddy with whom you were supposed to enter the Hall of Fame someday — make it any worse? Make the knife dig a little deeper, twist a little harder?
That’s when MacKinnon flashed.
“No,” is all he said.
There were no histrionics in the Avalanche dressing room. MacKinnon is one of the most fiery players the modern game has seen, but he wasn’t about to torch the place, his old friend or Chris MacFarland for dealing away Rantanen, without any warning, in the first place.
Maybe that comes later. Maybe that comes privately. For now, at this moment, mere minutes after shaking Rantanen’s hand on the ice, MacKinnon couldn’t even process what had just happened, let alone look at the big picture.
“I don’t know, it’s pretty shocking,” he said. “Felt like we were in total control, and then Mikko, credit to him, he made some amazing plays. He was a difference-maker, and he took over. I don’t know. I’m in shock, to be honest with you. Felt like we were in complete control of the game the whole time and just lost it.”
There’s no sugarcoating this one. There’s no solace to be found in the fact that this was a conference-final-level matchup, far from the typical first-round series. There’s no brushing it aside, writing it off, we’ll-get-em-next-time.
Yes, the Stars are good. Deep. Talented. Tested. But the Avalanche had no business losing this one. Not when Dallas was missing its No. 1 defenseman, Miro Heiskanen, and its No. 1 left wing, Jason Robertson, for the entire series. Not when the Stars had limped into the playoffs on a seven-game losing streak. Not when the series so often looked one-sided.
Colorado had trailed for only 62 seconds in the first three games but lost two of them anyway.
Colorado had one of the biggest emotional boosts in recent hockey history when captain Gabriel Landeskog returned for Game 3 at home, but lost the game anyway.
Colorado dominated in terms of shot attempts, scoring chances and high-danger chances but lost the series anyway.
Colorado had a 2-0 lead with 12 minutes to go in the third period of Game 7 but lost in regulation anyway.
For the second straight year, the Avalanche lost to their biggest rival. For the third straight year, they had an early playoff exit. That 2022 Stanley Cup and the dynasty that was supposed to follow are feeling further and further away all the time.
“They were missing their best ‘D’ and maybe their best forward, (and) we still couldn’t beat them,” MacKinnon said. “Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
Any playoff loss is gutting. It feels like someone took a melon baller and carved out your insides, heart and soul and all. But for Colorado, the stakes were higher, the damage greater, the agony more excruciating. The Avalanche were a trendy pick to not just win the series but win it all. The Stars were wounded and vulnerable. The Avalanche were dramatically remade and reinvigorated ahead of the trade deadline, with MacFarland aggressively adding the center depth they’ve lacked (Brock Nelson, Charlie Coyle and Jack Drury) and the goaltending (Mackenzie Blackwood, Scott Wedgewood) they’ve needed. Landeskog was on his way back.
Yes, Dallas had home-ice advantage, but Colorado had everything else going for it.
But now, the Avalanche are done on May 3. One series victory in three years. Another year of MacKinnon’s and Cale Makar’s prime squandered. Another year of Jared Bednar getting outcoached by Pete DeBoer, who improved to a staggering 9-0 in Game 7s, statistically the best clutch coach in the sport’s history. Another year closer to being a what-if for the ages, a one-Cup wonder, a team that spiked a championship but never realized its full potential, the hockey equivalent of the 1985 Chicago Bears, when they were supposed to be the next 2010s Chicago Blackhawks.
It’s not entirely fair, of course. This was a first-round matchup, but it wasn’t a first-round loss. This was a conference-final-level clash of titans, two legitimate Cup contenders going head to head a month too early. No, there’s no shame in losing to the Stars.
But there are consequences.
Will there be firings? Unlikely. Bednar is the second-longest-tenured coach in the game and is well respected. But he’ll feel the heat, especially after falling to DeBoer’s Stars for the second straight season. With all that talent on the roster, Colorado’s power play scored at a meager 13.6 percent clip in the playoffs, 14th among 16 teams.
“I don’t know — make better adjustments,” MacKinnon said when asked why that happened. “We had looks. Just not going in. Yeah. Bad adjustments.”
MacFarland isn’t going anywhere, either. Just a week or two ago, he was being hailed a genius for his midseason makeover. But he mortgaged a good chunk of the farm for Nelson, who proved a somewhat awkward fit with Colorado and didn’t score in the seven-game series. He’s an unrestricted free agent and unlikely to return. A steep price to get absolutely nothing in return. And while Coyle is an ideal third-line center, he’s no second-line center. So the search for Nazem Kadri’s replacement enters Year 4, with two fewer first-round picks (a future one and top prospect Calum Ritchie) to show for it. Blackwood, acquired and then instantly signed long-term, was terrific for two periods in Game 7, but he stumbled as the series went on while Dallas’ Jake Oettinger got stronger. Blackwood is locked in as a No. 1 now but remains a question mark.
Then, of course, there’s the Rantanen trade, which will hang around MacFarland’s neck — good or bad, fair or not — the rest of his career. Could he have actually re-signed Rantanen? Did he really have to trade him? Martin Necas and Drury were nice additions, but neither is going to tie an NHL record — 4 points in a playoff period — in back-to-back games the way Rantanen just did.
“He’s their guy; he took over,” Makar said.
Their guy. That’s going to hurt in that room for a long, long time. Whether MacKinnon wants to say it out loud or not.
There are times when MacKinnon seems something other than human, times when he does that little giddy-up-and-go through the neutral zone and makes a move to the net that looks like it requires more joints and twitchier muscles than a mere mortal can have, faster processing speed than a non-artificial intelligence is capable of. We think of professional athletes, particularly ones who have reached a pinnacle that ensures they’ll be remembered as long as skates meet ice, as something other, something more, something unknowable.
But even in his 95th playoff game, even after winning a Stanley Cup and a Hart and a Lindsay and a Calder, MacKinnon felt the weight of the last two games of this epic first-round series against the Stars.
“Oh, yeah, we’re human,” MacKinnon said before Game 6. “This is what we love to do — we want to keep going, we want to win. We definitely feel lots of internal pressure to win.”
And they didn’t win. Again. Despite having the momentum. Despite having their health. Despite having a 2-0 lead with 12 minutes to go in Game 7. That pressure will only build from here. Next spring, jobs very well might be at stake.
“Management did an incredible job putting us in a position to have a good chance at winning,” Makar said diplomatically. “It’s obviously going to be a very tough first round when you finish third in the Central, when you’re playing anybody — Dallas, Winnipeg, doesn’t matter. Really good teams. For us, there’s definitely bright spots that we can get excited for next year. But right now, it’s tough.”
Yes, they still have MacKinnon. Yes, they still have Makar. And as long as you have two of the five best players on the planet, you’re going to stay in the mix. You’re going to have a fighting chance.
But when you have those guys — and everything else the Avalanche had this season, this series, this game — every year that ends in a loss is a brutal one. A gut punch. A shock.
A waste.
“Crazy,” MacKinnon said. “I don’t know.”
(Top photo: Matthew Pearce / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
