Florida again did not allow a single goal to Ottawa. MacKinnon’s hat trick put him on pace to reach 50 goals in a season for the first time in his career

Florida was the favourite to beat Ottawa 2:0. Nathan MacKinnon, a hot Hart Trophy candidate, scored a hat trick and surpassed the 50-goal mark for the season.

Florida once again managed to zero out the Senators’ scorers

For the third time in the last four games, the home team from Florida was able to zero out the Ottawa shooters. This time it wasn’t Sergei Bobrovsky who kept a clean sheet in the Panthers’ net, but his replacement Anthony Stolarz, who started only his 26th game of the season.

Stolarz caught all 25 of his opponent’s shots, his second clean sheet of the season and eighth of his career. In addition, he maintains an excellent 2.03 goals per game average. Anton Lundell and Nick Cousins were the Panthers’ successful goal scorers in this game, representing their team’s cannoneers.

Florida is now in fourth place in the Eastern Conference with 3 games to go in the regular season, having reduced its deficit to third place Boston, which lost to Carolina today, to 3 points. At the same time, they maintain a 3 point gap to the fifth team from Toronto. Last year’s Stanley Cup finalist is thus poised to start the opening playoff series on home ice.

MacKinnon on pace for his first 50-goal season

Nathan MacKinnon, the second man in scoring for the Colorado Avalanche vs. Minnesota Wild (5:2). He scored another hat trick and added an assist. He contributed to a total of 4 goals for his team.

The Avalanche had the game firmly in their hands almost the whole game. They made up for the defeat to Dallas, when they scored a disgraceful 7 goals on their ice. Thanks to this another great performance, MacKinnon went over the 50-goal mark for the first time in his career.

Moreover, he proved once again that he is unstoppable at home. Out of 39 home games so far, he has only been held scoreless in one game, and that was quite unlucky, when he was denied a pass. He is now on pace for 137 points on the season and is two points behind Tampa Bay’s productivity leader Nikita Kucherov before the end of the regular season.

New Nordiques/Avalanche club record

Nathan MacKinnon played his 43rd multi-point game this season. He broke the record set by the legendary Peter Stastny in the 1981-82 season with the Quebec Nordiques. He also tied Peter Forsberg’s second-best performance in franchise history with his 86th assist of the season. Peter Šťastný again holds the record in this respect, as he managed to record 93 goals in the aforementioned season.

Source: NHL