{"id":537872,"date":"2026-04-03T04:32:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T04:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/537872\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T04:32:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T04:32:31","slug":"avs-forward-nathan-mackinnon-becomes-1st-to-50-goals-this-season-with-early-score-against-canucks-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/537872\/","title":{"rendered":"Avs forward Nathan MacKinnon becomes 1st to 50 goals this season with early score against Canucks"},"content":{"rendered":"

DENVER (AP) \u2014 Colorado\u2019s 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. That was pretty much the highlight for the Avalanche, whose rally from a four-goal deficit fell short in an 8-6 loss<\/a> to the Canucks. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s the second 50-goal campaign of MacKinnon\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s where he\u2019s gotten his production to over the last handful of seasons \u2014 high expectations,\u201d Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said before the game.<\/p>\n

After the game, Bednar was less than thrilled with his team\u2019s play even if they had a late surge that saw them tie it up.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to hand out badges for good effort and stuff like that \u2014 I think we\u2019re beyond that at this time of year,\u201d Bednar said. \u201cIf we\u2019re making excuses for that performance, it\u2019s going to be a short run.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked what went wrong in the opening two periods \u2014 falling behind 6-2 at one point and pulling goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood \u2014 Bednar simply said: \u201cIt\u2019s too long of list.\u201d <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER (AP) \u2014 Colorado\u2019s Nathan MacKinnon became the first NHL player this season to reach 50 goals when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,1281,192,144,5277,155,5,1117,4444,1538,1123,38401,517,4,292,1335,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-537872","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-avalanche","8":"tag-avalanche","9":"tag-co-state-wire","10":"tag-colorado","11":"tag-colorado-avalanche","12":"tag-coloradoavalanche","13":"tag-connor-mcdavid","14":"tag-hockey","15":"tag-jared-bednar","16":"tag-joe-sakic","17":"tag-kevin-lankinen","18":"tag-mackenzie-blackwood","19":"tag-michel-goulet","20":"tag-nathan-mackinnon","21":"tag-nhl","22":"tag-nhl-hockey","23":"tag-nikita-kucherov","24":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116338907198439347","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537872","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=537872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}