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Ryan S. Clark, NHL reporter
DENVER — Nathan MacKinnon‘s 35-game home points streak ended Thursday in a 3-2 shootout loss to the New York Rangers at Ball Arena.
MacKinnon, who has 29 goals and 77 points at home this season, finished with the second-longest home points streak in NHL history behind Wayne Gretzky, who set the mark at 40 games during the 1988-89 season. Also ending was MacKinnon’s 19-game points streak, which was his second such streak of the season. It was also the first time in NHL history that one player had two 19-game point streaks in a season.
Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said after the game that the team would look at providing evidence to the NHL that MacKinnon should have been credited with an assist that tied the score at 2-2 with 7:13 left in regulation.
The Avalanche were in the Rangers’ zone when MacKinnon delivered a pass to Devon Toews for a one-timer from the point. It initially appeared that Toews’ shot was stopped by Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin with Jonathan Drouin collecting the rebound and scoring the game-tying goal.
The goal was deemed an own goal that was credited to Toews, with another angle of the goal revealing Rangers defenseman Ryan Lindgren appeared to have been the last person who touched the puck before it went in the net.
“There is a process,” Bednar said. “You can look at it if you have video proof that there’s an assist, and he would get one.”
When asked if the team would go through that process, Bednar said, “Yeah, we can look at it.”
Avs defenseman Cale Makar said he was surprised to learn MacKinnon was not credited with an assist on the game-tying goal.
“It’s one game,” Makar said. “I think it’s not like he took the night off. I feel like he was finding ways to generate and stuff like that. Just sometimes, those bounces don’t go your way.”
MacKinnon, who did not meet with the media after the game, finished with five shots while logging 27:53 in ice time over 30 shifts.
Four of MacKinnon’s shifts came in overtime. While it has become common for MacKinnon to be used in overtime, Bednar was asked if there was some motivation to get MacKinnon extra ice time to extend the shift.
“I don’t think about the streak while we’re playing,” Bednar said. “But certainly, we’ve been trying to keep it going. As a group, I think everyone’s excited for it. In overtime, usually with Nate, he’s going until he tells me he needs a breather or if I’m reading it, he needs a breather. … He’s our most dangerous guy, right? Out of the forward group especially. I like to move him around with a couple different guys.”