O'Connor's 1st hat trick, MacKinnon's 4 points lift Avalanche past Flyers
Center has 2 goals, 2 assists to extend point streak to 11; Philadelphia loses for 1st time in 6 games
Nathan MacKinnon had two goals and two assists to extend his point streak to 11 games, and Mikko Rantanen scored two goals for Colorado (30-14-3). Alexandar Georgiev made 36 saves.
MacKinnon has 21 points (seven goals, 14 assists) during his streak. His second assist set up O'Connor for his third goal, when the Flyers had the goalie pulled for an extra skater.
"A pretty unselfish play by Nathan," O'Connor said. "He has two, and I think he knows he's going to get a lot more hat tricks than I will, so nice of him to slide that one over. Ultimately it was a good way to end the road trip with a winner."
Cam Atkinson had a goal and two assists for Philadelphia (25-15-6), and Joel Farabee, Travis Konecny and Tyson Foerster scored. Samuel Ersson made eight saves in the third period after replacing Carter Hart, who made 10 saves on 15 shots.
"Too many turnovers, especially with their dangerous guys," Philadelphia forward Morgan Frost said. "At the same time, I felt like we carried most of the play. Had a fair amount of chances and good [offensive] zone time, couple good looks on the power play. That's just the way it goes sometimes."
O'Connor made it 1-0 at 9:58 when a deflected puck went off his skate. The goal stood after a video review showed no distinct kicking motion.
He made it 4-1 at 8:14 of the second period when he got to the net and scored on a cross-slot pass from Miles Wood, and closed the scoring with an empty-net goal at 19:39.
"'Woody' sort of wished that into existence," O'Connor said. "He told me I was going to get two tonight so great play by him on that one. The other one off the skate, those are the ones you'll take any day. And then that empty netter."
The 27-year-old, in his sixth NHL season, has a personal-best 11 goals.
"His confidence is high, he's highly competitive, just works in all the right areas, all three zones," Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. "The defending side of it has been exceptional, always, but now he's finding a little bit of a groove and going to the net and capitalizing probably on more of his opportunities. He's earning more, but then capitalizing on a higher percentage of the ones than he has in the past and that's a confidence thing, that's trust in your ability.
"He's been playing third line or better for us all year pretty much, so there's some added ice time in there. But he's earned it. He's earned everything he's gotten this year."
Rantanen scored on a one-timer from the right face-off circle to make it 2-0 at 18:36, and MacKinnon made it 3-0 43 seconds into the second period.
Farabee scored from the crease to make it 3-1 at 1:49.
After O'Connor's second goal, Konecny got the Flyers within 4-2 at 12:23, scoring from the top of the offensive zone.
MacKinnon gave the Avalanche a 5-2 lead at 17:05, taking a drop pass from Josh Manson.
"Hockey is a funny sport," MacKinnon said. "To get [four] in a game like tonight is ... everything kind of went my way and I'll take it."
Foerster made it 5-3 at 5:26 of the third period on a shot from the left face-off circle, and Atkinson tipped Rasmus Ristolainen's point shot to get the Flyers within 5-4 at 8:11.
Rantanen extended the lead to 6-4 at 12:23 when he pushed a loose puck under Ersson on a power-play.
"I thought we did a pretty good job overall," Atkinson said. "We played with a lot of confidence and found a way to crawl back into it a little bit. We'll take some things we did really well and move on."
NOTES: Cale Makar had an assist on Rantanen's second goal for his 300th point in the NHL. It came in his 280th game, making him the second-fastest defenseman in NHL history to reach that milestone (Bobby Orr, 279 games). … MacKinnon's first assist was his 50th of the season, the sixth time he's had at least that many in a season. He's the fourth players in Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques history with at least six 50-assist seasons, along with Joe Sakic (14), Peter Stastny (nine) and Peter Forsberg (six). ... Wood has five points (two goals, three assists) in three games back after missing five because of an illness. ... Farabee has six points (four goals, two assists) during a five-game point streak. ... Atkinson has seven points (four goals, three assists) during a four-game point streak ... Frost had two assists and extended his point streak to four games (six assists). ... Colorado defenseman Devon Toews had an assist to extend his point streak to four games (two goals, three assists). … Flyers forward Owen Tippett left the game with 18:35 remaining in the third period, sustaining a lower-body injury when he got tangled with Avalanche forward Jonathan Drouin. Coach John Tortorella did not have an update after the game.
