MacKinnon 'hungry for more' with Avalanche
Forward ready to defend Stanley Cup, believes they have 'team to do it again'
After nine seasons in the NHL, which included low points of doubt and disappointment, the 27-year-old center stood on the ice at Amalie Arena in Tampa on June 26 and said he might get fat celebrating over the summer.
"I don't know if we're going back-to-back," he joked then.
Well, we'll see about that.
MacKinnon isn't fat and happy. He's happy and hungry, sounding as eager and confident as ever at the NHL North American Player Media Tour at Lifeguard Arena on Thursday.
"This day is all like: 'Oh, are you going to relax now? Are you going to chill?'" MacKinnon said. "I'm just going to keep being myself. I don't feel any different.
"Like, I'm really happy we won. It definitely takes the thing out of the back of your mind: 'Will I ever win one? What if this? What if that?' Now you don't have that. But you're still the same guy. I don't feel any different.
"I'm hungry for more, for sure."
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It is not unusual for NHL champions to achieve more, despite the introduction of the salary cap in 2005-06 and the parity it helped create.
The Chicago Blackhawks won the Cup in 2010, 2013 and 2015. The Los Angeles Kings won it in 2012 and 2014. The Pittsburgh Penguins went back-to-back in 2016 and 2017, and the Tampa Bay Lightning did it in 2020 and 2021.
The Avalanche are more than capable of doing it, too.
Although they lost goalie Darcy Kuemper, defenseman Jack Johnson and forwards Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Andre Burakovsky and Nazem Kadri in the offseason, they added goalie Alexandar Georgiev in a trade with the New York Rangers, signed forward Evan Rodrigues, and were able to keep their elite core and the rest of the supporting cast.
"I truly believe we have the team to do it again," MacKinnon said.
MacKinnon said he started skating about two weeks after the Avalanche won the Cup and that it feels like the season is "just kind of rolling again." He also said he feels better than he normally does before training camp.
It's not that MacKinnon expects it to be easy now, though. It's that he expects it to be hard.
And he relishes it.
The Avalanche learned what it takes to win in the Stanley Cup Playoffs through losing in the first round in 2018 and the second round in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
Now they know they have what it takes.
"I'm really looking forward to the adversity," MacKinnon said. "I think that's the one thing that you have to have to win, in my opinion. I'm not saying I know everything about winning or anything, but just to expect adversity, expect to feel like [garbage], expect to lose a game (along the way). Eventually, it's going to happen.
"Like, how are you going to react? And I think that's the biggest thing. The 48 hours or 44 hours until the next puck drop are so crucial, and that's what we got so much better at, is just letting go of the losses, flushing down the toilet, not overthinking them, because sometimes you have a bad day. You have a bad day. You're off, and the other team's on, and you lose, and the next day, you wake up and feel great."
Defenseman Cale Makar said MacKinnon has been setting the tone in informal skates.
"I think he's already in better form than he was last year," Makar said. "It's amazing to see that, and that's why he is who he is. He pushes other guys to get to that level. We take great pride in that in Denver, just being able to have guys that are able to push other guys to be better every single day.
"For us, we still think we have that ability to win. We have new key pieces coming in, so there will be a period of transition, I'm sure. But everybody's fast learners, and we're excited again. We know we have the ability and the chance to do it, and we've got to take that opportunity."
That will start with training camp on Wednesday.
"We're not going to take days off," MacKinnon said. "We're not going to think we're going to wait till the playoffs to start playing hard. Day One of camp, we're going to be flying, and there's no passengers. There's none of that.
"And that's what's so great about our team, is that we all expect that, and that's the bar. If you don't work hard, you're the loser. It's not like you're the cool guy if you're not working hard. So that's the culture we have, and even the skates we're doing now, they're fast. They're intense. It's very competitive, and guys are getting frustrated if they mess up. It's all the same.
"You win once, you just want to do it again."
