MacKinnon scores 4 goals, Avalanche rally past Senators

DENVER -- Nathan MacKinnon had four goals and an assist to extend his point streak to 17 games, and the Colorado Avalanche rallied for a 6-4 win against the Ottawa Senators at Ball Arena on Thursday.

MacKinnon has 33 points (12 goals, 21 assists) during his run, which is the longest active point streak in the NHL and matched Toronto Maple Leafs forward William Nylander for the longest this season. MacKinnon also extended his season-opening home point streak to 17 games (37 points; 15 goals, 22 assists).

He had nine shots on goal in 22:51 of ice time.

“I thought I've had better games, [it’s] just I got some goals tonight,” MacKinnon said. “I fanned on one, hit one off the shin pad, empty-netter. So, sometimes it feels easy, sometimes it feels really hard. So, tonight was easy.”

Mikko Rantanen scored twice, and Valeri Nichushkin had three assists for the Avalanche (20-11-2), who went 4-for-5 on the power play and won for the fourth time in six games. Alexandar Georgiev made 41 saves.

“The second [period] was terrible, terrible,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “Odd-man rush after odd-man rush coming the other way, so obviously a lack of detail in that period. Loved our first, though. Obviously, our top guys had a night. They were exceptional.”

Drake Batherson had a goal and an assist for the Senators (11-17-0), who have lost six in a row, including their first two with Jacques Martin as coach. Joonas Korpisalo made 33 saves.

“It's hard to look at positives right now; it's a pretty [bad] feeling,” Ottawa captain Brady Tkachuk said. “Don't think I've ever felt worse in my life. It's not fun right now.

“At the end of the day, it kind of starts with me as a leader. I’ve got to do a better job. Individually, I'm not there. I'm not playing where I need to be playing, and I feel like it's trickling down. It's on me. It's on me as the guy in charge, as a leader, to do a better job.”

MacKinnon gave the Avalanche a 1-0 lead on a power play at 2:43 of the first period, one-timing a feed from Jonathan Drouin.

Josh Norris tied it 1-1 at 15:13 when he one-timed Batherson’s backhand pass past a sprawling Georgiev.

Ridly Greig gave the Senators a 2-1 lead just 15 seconds later at 15:28. Dominik Kubalik tipped a shot from the point, and the puck rolled up and over Avalanche defenseman Devon Toews and off Georgiev before landing on Greig’s stick for the tap-in.

MacKinnon tied it 2-2 with a snap shot from between the circles that went under the left leg of Korpisalo at 18:28. It was MacKinnon’s 300th NHL goal.

“I think [it’s] the best [I’ve seen], probably, the way he's playing and skating and making plays and being hard to play against and defending hard,” Rantanen said of MacKinnon.

Jacob Bernard-Docker put Ottawa back in front 3-2 at 1:32 of the second period with a slap shot from the blue line that went off Colorado defenseman Cale Makar and got between Georgiev’s pads.

Batherson extended the lead to 4-2 at 14:47 when he corralled a cross-zone pass from Vladimir Tarasenko and fired it in far-side from the left face-off circle.

Rantanen cut it to 4-3 on a power play at 19:43 with a shot from the right circle.

“I was looking at the crease and I saw the goalie was scrambling a little bit,” Rantanen said. “I didn't even look at the net. I just tried to shoot it, and he wasn't in his position yet, so it was good to hit the net and score.”

MacKinnon completed the hat trick at 6:16 of the third period with a wrist shot from the left circle while on the power play to tie it 4-4. The Senators challenged for offside, but the goal was upheld following video review.

Rantanen then gave the Avalanche a 5-4 lead on a deflection of MacKinnon’s pass at 7:10 for their fourth power-play goal.

MacKinnon got his fourth goal of the game when he scored into an empty net at 19:37 for the 6-4 final.

“I said to the team after the game, 'You're disappointed and I'm disappointed that we didn't win, but what's important for me right now is that I felt that we progressed from last game (4-3 loss at the Arizona Coyotes on Tuesday) to tonight's game,’” Martin said. “I thought we had a better effort. We did a better job protecting the red line, not giving our zone as easy as last game, and I thought the second, we got stronger as the game went on. So, that was a good sign.”

NOTES: MacKinnon became the first in Avalanche history to score four goals in a game, and it was his fifth NHL hat trick. He became the fifth in Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques history to score 300 goals (Joe Sakic, 625; Michel Goulet, 456; Peter Stastny, 380; Milan Hejduk, 375). MacKinnon is the first player from the 2013 NHL Draft to reach 300 goals. … Makar had two assists and became first defenseman since Paul Coffey in 1991-92 to have at least 31 assists within his first 28 games of a season. … Colorado defenseman Devon Toews blocked six shots and had an assist in 25:15. … Ottawa was 1-for-6 on the power play. … Tkachuk had nine shots on goal. … Senators forward Jiri Smejkal got his first NHL point in his fifth game with an assist on Bernard-Docker’s goal.