MacKinnon under constant surveillance
If you didn’t know, now you know: Nathan MacKinnon is a special kind of talent.
It took Pekka Rinne gloving a bullet from the 22-year-old Colorado forward to keep him off the board on a charge to the net in Thursday’s Game 1 — that and an extended kick to stop MacKinnon linemate Mikko Rantanen on a breakaway made the Predators’ 5-2 comeback win possible. In Saturday’s Game 2, MacKinnon somehow fought off Filip Forsberg, muscled through Ryan Ellis and got a ridiculous backhand past Rinne to keep things close in an eventual 5-4 Preds win.
Throughout both games, MacKinnon displayed his speed and masterful ability to possess the puck and do dangerous things with it. This is why he had 39 goals and 97 points this season. This is why the Predators have been watching him the way an actual predator watches its prey. No. 29 is under constant surveillance.
And now it’s on MacKinnon to
What to catch in Game 3 Early lead.
make this first-round series interesting. It’s on the Predators to deny him. If he gets loose in Monday’s Game 3, the Avalanche can win. If he doesn’t, they probably won’t. Things often aren’t that simple in a Stanley Cup Playoff series, but MacKinnon means that much to a Colorado team that would be well shy of postseason quality without him.
“Oh man, he’s special,” Predators forward Austin Watson said of the short-list candidate for the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league’s MVP. “I mean, you don’t have the year he had this year without being a pretty incredible player. And just his line as a whole, they play the game with so much speed, you can’t get caught standing still.
“I mean if you are, they’ll blow right around you. Even if you think you’re doing a good job on them, you can’t really take your foot off the gas at all or they’ll turn it back on you and get chances.”
Already, it has been fascinating to watch Peter Laviolette match his team up with the line of MacKinnon, Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog. Fascinating and somewhat
The Avs need another great start at home and to take an early lead -- keeping the crowd involved throughout. The key to that offensive is, of course, the MGM Line with center Nathan MacKinnon and wingers Gabe Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen. surprising. I expected to see a good share of best vs. best, Nashville countering that line with its top line. And after watching what P.K. Subban and Mattias Ekholm did as a shutdown defensive pairing in last year’s Stanley Cup Final run, those two seemed to make sense against Colorado’s big three.
But Laviolette switched up early in Game 1 and sent his third line of Nick Bonino, Watson and Colton Sissons at MacKinnon and Co. for most of the night. And he opted for the pairing of Ellis and Roman Josi as a matchup, which is less surprising because those two are built to counter speed while Subban and Ekholm specialize in grappling with big, strong foes.
“I don’t know if we expected it entirely,” Watson, who has two goals in two games, said of Laviolette putting his line against Colorado’s best. “But we know all three of us are good in our own end and play the game pretty detailed, and if we’re out there against them that’s what we’re going to be asked to do. It’s nothing where we’re being asked to go above and beyond how we want to play the game anyway.”
Laviolette downplayed the specific matchup on MacKinnon, saying “If it ends up being the Johansen line, that’s fine, too. Really all of our lines, to be honest with you, I trust,” he said, and that’s part of why this team is where it is.
But the Predators know who they prefer on the ice against MacKinnon. And MacKinnon, who also had a 5-on-3 assist Saturday and six shots in a whopping 25 minutes of ice time, has to know that he either builds on that production or this series ends soon.