The ghost in the stall meant one thing: Nathan MacKinnon isn’t done haunting the NHL yet.
As the Avalanche locker room opened for media a few Fridays ago during training camp, the big names crisscrossed, de-taped and unwound. Captain Gabe Landeskog held court at one end. Newbie Brent Burns grinned toothlessly at the other.
“Every day, you see (MacKinnon) do 10-12 things that are like, ‘Holy (expletive),’” Burns, a veteran defenseman who came over from Carolina, cackled. “And usually I’m at the wrong end of it. So it’s not good.”
Practice had just ended. MacKinnon’s skates were inside his locker. The rest of him was gone. Grinding.
“Working out,” an Avs staffer told me.
Twenty minutes became 25.
“He’s riding the bike now,” another staffer said. “Will be a bit of time.”
Twenty-five minutes became 30.
Then 35. Then 40. Then 45.
My phone buzzed.
“He’s on the way,” a voice said.
Think this man is easing up at age 30? Think he’s satisfied with one Stanley Cup?
You must be joking.
“I enjoy the day-to-day grind of it,” the Avs’ iconic center explained. “I enjoy working out. I enjoy skating with guys back home — just relaxing and working hard and trying to get better. So that kind of keeps me in the moment. ”
The rocket never rests. MacKinnon stands 6-foot in socks. But if carrying the Avs on his back, if dragging them kicking and screaming, gets Colorado another Stanley Cup in 2026, he’s good with that, too. Hop on.
“Just trying to get my mind and body ready for a long season,” MacKinnon continued. “Each day I come here, I’m just trying to get a little better. Just try to win every day I have. And hopefully that takes me and the team to a good spot.”
He’s in a better place than last May. That’s when old friend Mikko Rantanen, in what we hope doesn’t become a recurring theme, tore into MacKinnon’s chest and ripped his heart out. Rantanen, a stalwart of the Avs’ 2022 Cup champs, scored a hat trick to lead his new team, the Dallas Stars, to a maddening, series-clinching Game 7 win over his old one.
“It’s like getting over a breakup,” MacKinnon said of last season’s ignominious end. “It just takes a long time. Time heals everything.”
Including the Avs. Last spring’s wounds are this fall’s scars. Last October’s concerns are this year’s colonnades.
Landeskog, the Captain, is back from the jump. So is big Valeri Nichushkin.
Brock Nelson signed a 3-year extension to nip that nagging “2C” question in the bud. New winger Victor Olofsson can hit a flea from 50 yards out. Burns brings 6-foot-5 beef to the blue line, to say nothing of the best dang beard in pro hockey.
“I think when you all lose together, you’re in a painful experience together, I think you can come out of it stronger,” MacKinnon said of the Avs’ first-round elimination by a depleted Stars roster. “No one (in this locker room) was blaming each other; it was all on each other. I think it was a tough loss. We lost to a really good team. But I think we’ll be better because of it.”
One Cup? For Nate, it’s not enough. It was never enough.
Mighty MacK’s good pal Sidney Crosby went seven years between championships. Colorado’s Burgundy Bolide turned 30 on Sept. 1. Father Time is the only dude MacKinnon can’t beat to the goal line.
“This is our fourth year (since 2022), so you just never know when it’s going to come,” the Avs center mused. “It’s just … sometimes, you win a couple in a row. Sometimes, it took (the Penguins) seven. And (then) they won two in a row. Hopefully, that happens for us one day. But I like where we’re at.”
Enter Burns. Enter Olofsson. Enter new assistant coach Dave Hakstol to help put some pep back into Colorado’s special teams. The Avs’ power play buzzsaw of the ’22 postseason was positively toothless in ’25 against the Stars.
“It’s not a ton of turnover, like last season (when) we had like nine new guys,” MacKinnon said. “Most of those guys are back. So I think it’s going to be a positive year — positive that we have so many returning guys.”
The negative? Landy turns 33 in November. Val turns 31 in March. Nelson’s 34th birthday falls on Oct. 15. Burns is lurching toward 41.
There’s a lot of mileage in that locker room. And an awful lot of tread worn off an awful lot of tires.
“I won’t look at Nate any differently if he wins one (Cup) or if he wins three,” Eddie Olczyk, the Warner Bros. Discovery and TNT analyst, told me by phone. “He’s won. He’s separated himself from many, many great players who have played this game.
“In terms of game-breakers and difference-makers, (the Avs) have two of the very best at different positions in (MacKinnon) and (defenseman) Cale Makar. But you need to stay healthy.”
Fortunately, the big 3-0 for Big Nate is no big deal. Like traffic on South Broadway and snow at Wolf Peak, MacKinnon’s wheels feel eternal.
Last spring, No. 29 became the first Avs player to post three consecutive seasons of 100 points or more, and the first in Colorado/Quebec annals since Peter Stastny pulled it off six times from 1980-86. MacKinnon is 33 goals away from 400 for his career.
During that ill-fated Stars series, MacKinnon took things as far as he could. His scoring clip of a goal per game was a new postseason high over nine different Cup runs. His 1.57 points per tilt were the most he’d produced in the playoffs since the 2020 COVID-19 bubble (1.67).
The problem? MacKinnon was a one-man wolf pack. No. 29 accounted for seven of Colorado’s 24 goals that series. The next-closest scorers were Artturi Lehkonen and Nichushkin, with three apiece. Coach Jared Bednar got juice from his top line and from his fourth — get well, Logan O’Connor — but the middle six vanished.
Dallas, meanwhile, eliminated the Avs minus the services of top defenseman Miro Heiskanen or forward Jason Robertson. Could you imagine Colorado knocking out a top-4 seed without Makar or MacKinnon?
“They (were) missing their best (defender) and maybe their best forward,” a crestfallen MacKinnon had said in Texas. “We still couldn’t beat them. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
He knows now.
“Yeah, obviously, it was (emotional),” MacKinnon said. “Hopefully, we are better next spring. But we’ve got a lot of hockey before that.
“It was heartbreaking. It was definitely the most tough loss of my career. By a mile.”
The best revenge is living well, Lord Stanley cradled in your loving arms. Payback’s a stitch. And Hell hath no fury like a Nathan scorned.
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