TAMPA, Fla. – Nathan MacKinnon lifted the Stanley Cup over his head and then lowered it to his lips.
The Colorado Avalanche, a team he dreamed of playing as a child, were champions for the first time since 2001. MacKinnon, his 26-year-old superstar, had a goal and an assist in his 2-1 victory in the 6th. party. Tampa Bay Lightning to win this championship.
When he lifted the Cup again, there was something peculiar about MacKinnon’s face. Something he hadn’t been to at the end of any of his previous playoff series: a radiant smile.
“He doesn’t smile too often. It’s all business. But you could see how excited he was to get it up,” Colorado CEO Joe Sakic said. “I’m very excited about it. Maybe now you can relax and enjoy the summer a little bit.”
MacKinnon scored 13 goals on the way to 24 points in the playoffs, doing everything he could to secure a championship for Colorado and block his own legacy as an NHL star. Although the latter did not matter much to MacKinnon before the Stanley Cup final.
“Legacy for whom? You?” said Media Day. “I’m just having fun every day. Doing the best I can for my team. That’s all I’m thinking about.”
To begin his own legacy, he ended up with another, eliminating the consecutive Stanley Cup champions.
“It’s crazy how they went with each other,” MacKinnon said. “I could get fat like s — right now, so I don’t know if we’re going to be late. But I’m sure I’ll enjoy it.”
The Lightning have said they had to lose before they could learn to win. So did MacKinnon. Those harrowing disappointments from the regular season and postseason that had come to define his nine-year career in the NHL were undoubtedly worth the time of a win. Those years of demanding excellence from peers to the point of backstage rigidity. That personal journey for MacKinnon in which he learned, from mentors like Sidney Crosby, the mindset to unlock the achievement of the playoffs.
It was all worth it, because Nathan MacKinnon was finally able to enjoy the unbridled joy of leading a Stanley Cup championship to the Avalanche.
On the ice, he has been a star. Off the ice, MacKinnon was “our team’s battery, it makes everything come out,” as defender Erik Johnson said. The guy who would say or do anything to make sure his team finally reached its potential.
“I think what makes it so good is hyper-competitiveness,” said former Avalanche defender Ian Cole, now a member of the Carolina Hurricanes. “Even in practice. He will do whatever it takes to win. Even if that means calling his own teammates.”
What MacKinnon would do, often. By finally winning a spin with Lord Stanley, one of the best players on the planet had become him and his teammates champions, even if that meant crushing some egos along the way.
WHEN DEFENDER JOSH MANSON He was traded by the Anaheim Ducks to the Avalanche before the deadline, he knew of MacKinnon’s intensity as an opponent to the ice. I didn’t know the intensity pales in comparison to what players experienced with MacKinnon outside of games: in practice, in the locker room, and in life.
“Well, it’s intense. It’s scary? I guess it depends on the player. But it’s very intense,” Manson said. “But that’s why it’s different. It drives everyone around you to be better, and that’s what’s so special. It’s in your face. It says, ‘I expect this from you. I’m here to win.'” .
Many of those who played with MacKinnon have seen or experienced first-hand how these expectations are manifested. There are screams. There is strong criticism and advice without filters. There is a standard of excellence applied to everything from an exercise to a fitness decision.
“For one of the best players in the league, who is so dedicated to the organization, if it’s a little intense when someone doesn’t act right? I don’t see it as a problem,” said Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, who played with MacKinnon for two seasons before leaving for the Lightning last summer.
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Hurricane defender Cole spent part of three seasons with the Avalanche and considers MacKinnon a friend.
“I don’t necessarily think competitiveness is a bad thing. Yes, it’s abrasive. But I think competitiveness and that abrasiveness and the ability to call anyone at any given time, about anything, whether you’re right or wrong, is done. that the guys move on to the plate and make them play better, ”he said. “Either they’re afraid of being called up or they don’t want to look silly and they’re excited to play better.”
This happens to both NHL veterans in the Avalanche and novices.
“A lot of young guys say,‘ I just don’t want to get up and be called, ’Cole said.
Cale Makar was one of those young players. He joined the Avalanche in the 2020 playoffs, directly from the NCAA. He had six points in 10 playoff games and then won the Calder Trophy as the debutant of the year the following regular season. It was obvious he would be a special player.
That wasn’t good enough for MacKinnon.
“Cale had all the talent in the world,” Cole said. “But Nate was still pushing him. Telling him he wasn’t good enough. Asking him what he was doing on the ice. Telling him ‘you have to be better than that’ in the power game or whatever. And now “Cale is one of the best players in the NHL. When you surround yourself with people who make you better, then you have to rise automatically. That’s the culture that Nate was building there.”
This culture is something Makar has accepted, and the winner of the Norris Trophy credits MacKinnon for leading him to practice.
“He’s obviously a touchstone, a very intense guy,” Makar said. “And I think for me, I’m a very competitive guy. So it’s fun, especially practicing with him. He’s a guy who pushes others to improve, and I’m a guy who likes to think I’m trying. improve the people around me too “.
Logan O’Connor has also been this young player. This was his first full campaign with the Avalanche after playing parts of the last three seasons with the team.
“He’s a great role model for a lot of young guys. He’s at the top of his game, in the conversation of one of the best players in the world. He’s always out of training before and after training, pushing the guys. it hurts. a representative … “
O’Connor paused.
“You need someone to push everyone. When guys aren’t sharp or sleepy, because it’s a long season, he’s always there to reorient people and make them responsible,” he continued. “I think that’s the most important thing with our team. The responsibility for the whole lineup. Everyone has high standards for each other and he’s one of the guys who keeps those standards.”
Even if these standards mean that you do not dare, for example, to eat junk food in their presence.
“I’m not a candy boy,” O’Connor said. “Fortunately it had nothing to do with it.”
CANONICALLY, THE LARGEST An example of MacKinnon’s abrasive intensity was provided by former Avalanche defender Nikita Zadorov last summer. He did an interview in Russian in which he shared some of MacKinnon’s dietary standards, which he said were pushed by his teammates.
“Two years ago, in Colorado, he got rid of all the pop, ice cream, and dessert,” Zadorov said. “He got rid of the dressing room and pre-match meals. He even got rid of the white sauce for the pasta. He replaced the pasta itself with chickpea pasta. He says, ‘Guys, if you want to eat shit , You have the low season for that. When you come here, there will be none of that because we are winning the Cup. “
He then compared the backstage intensity of MacKinnon with that of Michael Jordan. Seeing him appear on social media, MacKinnon was contacted.
“I read the first paragraph on Instagram and said, ‘I can’t read this.’ Like, he compared me to MJ. I said, ‘Dude, you’re a donkey,'” MacKinnon said. . I say to myself, ‘Ger, can you stop talking about me in Russia?’ “
MacKinnon did not deny that he eats healthy and encourages classmates to do the same.
“Maybe if you saw‘ Z ’eating a big bar of chocolate it would give him shit,” he said. “But I’m not a psychopath or anything. I also like to eat what others do.”
Makar said that for the record, MacKinnon would not call him if he saw him eating a cupcake.
“I feel like all of these things have been taken disproportionately,” he said. “He can eat some tricks, and he’s not crazy like that. But during the season, obviously, he’s very marked, which you should be.”
Cole has no gluten or dairy and follows his own diet, so he was never on MacKinnon’s list of culinary hits while playing Avalanche. But he said MacKinnon’s pressure on his teammates to eat well was real.
“There were guys on our team where he didn’t punch. He said, ‘You’re fat. Stop eating s —‘,” Cole said. “In his defense, he’s not wrong. He’s so blunt and honest and he doesn’t punch. He says, ‘I’m not going to give myself a s —. It’s true. “And it’s 99% of the time.”
MacKinnon is far from the only NHL player to place great value on nutrition.
“It’s pretty strict. But I think all the guys today are very conscious,” said Sidney Crosby, the Pittsburgh Penguins star. “I would say we are pretty close [in diet]But.”
Crosby and MacKinnon. Two NHL superstars from Cole Harbor, Nova Scotia. An idol who befriended a fan, and is now his off-season training partner.
“He and Sid are good friends,” said Cole, who was also Crosby’s teammate with the Penguins, “and they’re both very similar in that sense: hyper, hyper competitive.”
CROSBY FIRST MET MacKinnon when Nate was 17, playing for the Halifax Mooseheads of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. MacKinnon would return to Cole Harbor in the summer and train there, as would Crosby.
The Penguins star and Avalanche star spoke before the playoffs, but MacKinnon refused to share what they talked about. Crosby has said the two have had sincere conversations about hockey, including the mental part of the game.
“I think it’s …