At 22, MacKinnon leads his team with 36 goals among 86 points in just 63 games.
"It's unreal," Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. "He was the first overall pick. It was a good draft, there were some real good players in there. (Florida's Aleksander) Barkov's a hell of a player, too. Obviously Seth Jones is a hell of a player, too. In those top picks there were some great players. MacKinnon had a little bit of a down year last year, I thought he had a good rookie year.
"This year he's really become, I think, one of the elite players in the league. He's making a run for saying he's one of the best players in the league for sure. He can really score, his line has been excellent, so it'll be a great challenge for us today."
Last season MacKinnon had 16 goals among 53 points in 82 games as the Avalanche struggled.
Currently the Avalanche sit in the first wild-card spot in the Western Conference with 84 points.
The Dallas Stars and Anaheim Ducks also have 84 points.
"We've got to make sure that we're ready to go," Blashill said. "Our trip's not over, we got to finish this trip off with a great effort here today. It'll be a little different game. The Ducks try to bully you, for lack of a better word, they're trying to bully you. Our guys said there's no chance we're getting bullied. This is a different team, they're not going to necessarily do it that way. But they're going to try to beat you with their speed and their high-octane transition game so we got to make sure we're eliminating that."
Blashill has often said that the best teams have a 1-2 punch like Pittsburgh has with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
MacKinnon has Mikko Rantanen, 21, a 6-foot-4, 211-pound forward who has 25 goals and 50 assists in 70 games.
"That line, (Gabriel) Landeskog was two overall, and he brings a lot of physicality, net presence. Rantanen's a heck of a player. It's a real, real dangerous line, one of the better lines in the league for sure. We're going to have to make sure we account for them."
Landeskog, 25, has 23 goals among 53 points in 67 games.
Some have pointed to the trade of Matt Duchene as the turning point for MacKinnon's incredible season.
"I think sometimes, it's just the maturation of the player and it just was McKinnon's time to really step forward," Blashill said. "Maybe there was more ice time available, sometimes that happens when there's a void created with ice time. I think MacKinnon was playing great earlier in the year when Duchene was there, to be honest with you. I just think that for whatever reason, last year wasn't the year he wanted to have and this year he's really, really picked his game up to an elite, elite level and he's got to be considered one of the top five, six, seven players in the league."
MacKinnon is in the midst of an 11-game point streak in which he has 11 goals and 10 assists.
It's the longest streak by an Avalanche player since MacKinnon had a 13-game point streak in his rookie season in 2013-14.
LOSING STREAK: While MacKinnon is soaring, the Red Wings have been sinking.
The team is fighting through an 0-8-1 skid and a winless trip so far but the team's effort has not been a problem.
"The compete and effort's been there 100 percent, there's no question about it," Blashill said. "I'm actually real proud of the way the guys have continued to fight. We've been kicked lots this year in a lot of ways and I think we've kept getting back up. Now we've got to keep doing it. We'll have a challenge here today, this is a high-octane offense so we got to make sure we're playing at that high level. We got to compete and work like crazy to win. We know that so let's keep competing and working like crazy. Now find a way to eliminate some unneeded mistakes. We've made too many mistakes for sure so we got to eliminate those unforced errors. It hasn't been a lack of will or compete or work ethic."
Goaltender Jared Coreau is expected to get his fourth start and his first career appearance against Colorado.
