DENVER– No matter what milestone he reaches or peak he climbs: Nathan MacKinnon carries himself with a quiet, almost disarming humility.
He’s a player who never thought he would reach these heights, and in Monday night’s 6-1 win over the St. Louis Blues at Ball Arena, he added his name to one of the NHL’s most exclusive lists, becoming the 114th player in league history to score 400 career goals.
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In more than a century of hockey at its highest level, fewer than 9,000 people have attended an NHL game. Of those, only 114 have reached the 400-goal mark, a distinction that places MacKinnon in a group representing just over 1 percent of all players in league history.
MacKinnon was selected first overall by the Colorado Avalanche in the 2013 NHL Entry Draft, just weeks after helping the QMJHL’s Halifax Mooseheads win their first Memorial Cup championship. Despite the lack of time during the tournament, he finished as top scorer, recording seven goals and six assists in four matches.
Although he entered the league with great fanfare, MacKinnon’s first four seasons in the NHL were far from earth-shattering. He wasn’t bad – he was solid – but he averaged about 52 points per season, a respectable but unremarkable performance for a first overall pick. But MacKinnon became worried about being average. He didn’t want to be good, he wanted to be superhuman.
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And MacKinnon did just that. Over the past nine seasons, he has risen to the upper echelon of NHL stardom, going from a player who struggled to hit a point-per-game pace to one of the league’s most consistent and prolific scorers, averaging over a point per game since the 2017-18 season.
He is a Stanley Cup champion, having won hockey’s ultimate prize with the Avalanche in 2022, and he has also received individual recognition: the Hart Memorial Trophy, awarded to the league’s Most Valuable Player, and the Ted Lindsay Award, voted by his fellow players as the NHL’s most outstanding performer.
And yet, even with a championship, league-wide honors and a resume most players can only dream of, MacKinnon remains insatiable – hungry for more, driven by the desire to exceed every milestone, every expectation and redefine what’s possible on the ice.
Marcin Goszczynski has been a key force behind MacKinnon’s relentless drive, guiding him, challenging him and pushing him to elevate his game – and his body – to new heights.
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The 43-year-old is a performance and rehabilitation specialist who uses a blend of techniques to mobilize soft tissues, accelerate recovery and help elite athletes perform at their best.
His client list reads like a who’s who of professional sports. Along with MacKinnon and Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, Goszczynski helped a five-time major singles tennis champion overcome chronic shoulder problems in 2019, allowing her to have one last competitive run before retiring. He also worked with Canadian sprinter Andre De Grasse, who would go on to win two Olympic gold medals.
By now, it’s clear that MacKinnon is the type of player who prefers the spotlight to shine somewhere other than him. So when Hockey news asked him – given that he never expected to reach this level of production early in his career – to name some of the inspirational figures who helped him get to this point, he seemed momentarily taken aback. After a pause, Goszczynski was the first person who came to mind.
“There are a few people who have inspired me. The guy who is with me every day, Marcin (Goszczynski), who makes my body move,” MacKinnon said. “We do a lot of different and weird things together. I think he’s been the most important thing in my career.”
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“Of course, there’s a lot of people: my parents, my sports psychologist, my wife (Charlotte), a lot of people. Like you said, I really didn’t expect to be here, but it’s fun, and obviously I’m just trying to be the best player I can for this team. We had a Cup three years ago, and it would be nice to have another one.”
With the Avalanche, they became the first NHL team to reach 30 wins this season, marking the third time in the last six campaigns that the Avalanche were the fastest team to reach the milestone (also in 2020-21 and 2021-22).
Historically, the fastest teams to reach 30 wins in NHL history are:
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35 games — Boston Bruins 1929-1930
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38 games — Boston Bruins 2022-2023
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38 games — Montreal Canadiens 1944-1945
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39 games — Colorado Avalanche 2025-2026
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39 games — Chicago Blackhawks 2012-2013
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39 games — Tampa Bay Lightning 2018-2019
Statistically speaking, the Avalanche that we have had the privilege of covering this season is one of the most dominant teams of the last century of the NHL. And when you consider how much faster the game has become and how much more skilled and versatile the players are in all facets of the game, their performance is all the more astonishing, especially considering the caliber of each player who steps on the ice.
And MacKinnon is not only poised for the best season of his career, he’s also poised for one of the most remarkable seasons in modern NHL history. The 30-year-old center projects to finish with 72 goals and 76 assists for 147 points.
No player has scored 70 or more goals in a season in more than three decades. The last to do so were Hockey Hall of Famers Alexander Mogilny and Teemu Selänne, who each scored 76 goals for the original Buffalo Sabers and Winnipeg Jets, respectively, during the 1992-93 season.
Nathan MacKinnon delivers hockey like no other, and even in the midst of historic dominance, his eyes are fixed on one goal: winning another championship for the Avalanche.
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