Avalanche loses Nathan MacKinnon, discipline, but rallies for three goals to extend home winning streak

An immense amount of emotions went into the Avalanche improbable 17th consecutive victory at Ball Arena.

The Avs lost star center Nathan MacKinnon to a frightening facial/upper-body injury early Wednesday night against the Boston Bruins. And with his bloodied face still at the forefront of their minds, veteran defenseman Erik Johnson appeared to lose his composure because of it — making the seemingly game-costing mistake.

But a three-goal rally — capped by an overtime tally by Cale Makar, his 17th of the season — gave Colorado an extraordinary 4-3 victory to extend its club-record home winning streak at home to 17 games, fifth-most in NHL history.

Colorado also extended its league-best overall winning streak to eight games.

“I put it pretty high,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said when asked where he ranks win No. 30 on the season. “That’s our biggest one of the year, I would say.”

The Bruins scored two power-play goals during Johnson’s cross-checking minor on Taylor Hall — the Boston winger who made the dangerous hit that bloodied MacKinnon’s face — to forge a 3-1 lead before Colorado scored two third-period goals, the latter in the final minute with goalie Darcy Kuemper on the bench for a sixth attacker.

Makar was the hero, using his potent wrist shot to beat goalie Linus Ullmark at the tail end of the Avs’ 4-on-3 power play in the extra frame.

“It’s not always perfect, but then we just stick with it. I can hear the belief,” Bednar said of the third-period rally. “We find a way to make it 3-2 and then 3-3 and we make a nice plan in overtime to draw a penalty and we end up getting a win.”

On MacKinnon’s second shift, just 2:22 into the game, he was skating the puck out of the defensive zone and, immediately after he backhanded it towards winger Mikko Rantanen, Hall met him with a shoulder check in fly-by fashion. MacKinnon’s stick bloodied and damaged his face more than Hall’s shoulder — a hit that was ultimately deemed an interference minor after officials originally ruled it was a major.

After the first period, the Avs announced MacKinnon would not return with an upper-body injury. Replays showed MacKinnon’s stick was lodged between his face and Hall’s shoulder at impact.

Avs captain Gabe Landeskog roughed up and challenged Hall to a fight several times in the first period, after which Colorado led 1-0. And then in the second period when Avs defenseman Sam Girard was serving a roughing minor in a 1-1 tie, Johnson, an alternate captain, cross-checked Hall to the ice at least three times before a referee threw up his arm for the penalty.

“When one of your best friends and teammates and ultimately your best player gets hit like that in the neutral zone, you just got to make sure that next time anybody thinks about doing that they have to pay a price and there’s going to be some consequences,” Landeskog said.

Did Johnson hurt his team by trying to make that point? Johnson joined Girard in the box and Boston got power-play goals from Charlie Coyle (5-on-3) and Brad Marchand (5-on-4) to complete a three-goal rally.

“We’ll move on from that,” Bednar said of Johnson’s incessant cross-checks on Hall. “It’s mistakes like that mistake that cost you games when you’re getting into a (playoff) series and there’s momentum. So to me … we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

Girard scored 11:46 into the third period to get the Avs within 3-2. And Landeskog came through with 37 seconds left in regulation.

“Going into the third period, we knew that we still had a chance to win the game. We were never out of it,” Makar said. “So you just kind of keep riding that momentum of the team. And fortunately, right now a lot of guys are stepping up in roles and playing really well.”

The Avalanche (30-8-3) has its best record in club history at the halfway point of the season. The game against the Bruins was Colorado’s 41st in the 82-game season. The Avs improved to 13-0-1 in January, tying Carolina (2006) and Washington (2010) with the NHL record for victories in the month.

Footnotes. Avs forward J.T. Compher played in his 300th NHL game. … The Avs and Bruins met for the first time since Dec. 7, 2019, when Colorado prevailed 4-1 in Boston. The teams were supposed to face off Dec. 23 in Boston but that game was postponed and rescheduled for Feb. 21. Colorado entered Wednesday 6-0-1 in its last seven games against the Bruins and 24-10-2 overall. The Avs have a 14-game point streak in the city of Boston (12-0-2). … The Avalanche’s netminders entered Wednesday combined for a league-high .932 save percentage in January.