{"id":535831,"date":"2026-04-02T02:32:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T02:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/535831\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T02:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T02:32:13","slug":"avs-forward-nathan-mackinnon-becomes-1st-to-50-goals-this-season-with-early-score-against-canucks-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/535831\/","title":{"rendered":"Avs forward Nathan MacKinnon becomes 1st to 50 goals this season with early score against Canucks"},"content":{"rendered":"

DENVER (AP) \u2014 Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon became the first NHL player this season<\/a> to reach 50 goals when his liner from up top beat Vancouver goaltender Kevin Lankinen 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.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/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

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

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

\u201cThat’s where he’s gotten his production to over the last handful of seasons \u2014 high expectations,\u201d Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said before the game.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER (AP) \u2014 Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon became the first NHL player this season to reach 50 goals when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[192,155,198,5,1538,38401,16474,517,4,1335,8403],"class_list":{"0":"post-535831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-colorado","9":"tag-connor-mcdavid","10":"tag-edmonton","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-kevin-lankinen","13":"tag-michel-goulet","14":"tag-milan-hejduk","15":"tag-nathan-mackinnon","16":"tag-nhl","17":"tag-nikita-kucherov","18":"tag-straight-season"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116332773254045169","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}