Avalanche 6, Lightning 3: MacKinnon Has Four, Kadri Gets His First

October 23, 2026 - Denver - Martin Necas had the puck in the slot with the bubble in his way. He still knew Devon Toews would be on the left side. The pass went across. Andrei Vasilevskiy sprawled. The net was open 68 seconds into the night.

The Colorado Avalanche beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 6-3 at Ball Arena. Colorado is 6-4-1 after two straight road losses and three of four (1-2-1), the NHL recap said. Tampa Bay is 7-3-0, a three-game winning streak and seven of eight snapped. Shots were 34-24 Tampa Bay. Attendance was 18,104, per ESPN. Max Crozier, Logan O'Connor, Taylor Makar, and Dennis Hildeby are not seeded on AthX player pages, so those names stay unlinked.

Nathan MacKinnon had a goal and three assists. Necas had a goal and two assists. Toews and Artturi Lehkonen each had a goal and an assist. Nazem Kadri scored his first of the season. Mackenzie Blackwood stopped 31 of 34. Jake Guentzel scored twice. Charle-Edouard D'Astous had a goal and an assist. Vasilevskiy stopped 18 of 23 in 59:52. The empty-netter did not go on him.

MacKinnon, on NHL.com: obviously a good start. Beat one of the best teams in the League.

3-0 before the Lightning had a shift they liked

Toews finished Necas at 1:08. MacKinnon had fed Necas cutting into the slot. Necas told NHL.com it is a little tougher to see with the bubble, but he knew Toews would be there.

Kadri made it 2-0 at 5:52 on the power play. T.J. Hughes from below the goal line. Kadri one-timed it from the left circle, far side, off Vasilevskiy. First of his season.

Fedor Svechkov pushed it to 3-0 twenty-four seconds into the second. He looked to pass across to Hughes on a 2-on-1. Vasilevskiy got a stick on it. Svechkov batted his own blocked pass out of the air and inside the left post. Colorado coach Jared Bednar called him a big, strong guy who can protect pucks and check the right way.

Jon Cooper told NHL.com that when Tampa Bay has had prolonged time off, it has hurt the team. They were off. You go down 2-0 five minutes in, now you are chasing it. They came out flying. We didn’t.

Nikita Kucherov entered with 1,137 career points, one from passing Steven Stamkos for the Lightning franchise record, the NHL recap said. He left still tied. Two shots. No points. Victor Hedman played 5:56. Lightning radio’s Dave Mishkin wrote that Tampa Bay played almost all of the last two periods without him after one shift in the second.

Guentzel twice, Colorado answers both

Guentzel cut it to 3-1 at 8:13 on the power play. Brock Nelson blocked D’Astous from the point. The puck caromed to Guentzel off the left post. Short side, empty net. Brayden Point the other assist.

Lehkonen made it 4-1 at 13:57. MacKinnon took it around the net and found him in the left circle. The snap caromed five-hole off Erik Cernak’s left leg. Lehkonen’s point streak is six games (six goals, three assists), the NHL notes said.

Guentzel scored again at 19:17, just after a power play ended. Point’s backhand from the slot, Guentzel at the right post. 4-2. Colorado challenged for a missed stoppage. Video review upheld the call. Tampa Bay got a power play out of the failed challenge and did not score. The Associated Press recap said the Lightning struggled on the man advantage all evening.

Point told NHL.com the support was not close enough, the passing was not good enough, and they turned a lot of pucks over. A team like that capitalizes.

MacKinnon from the left dot, then the empty net

MacKinnon made it 5-2 at 4:18 of the third. Lehkonen sprung him in the neutral zone. Wrist from just inside the left dot, blocker, short side. Necas called Lehkonen underrated, always in a good spot, creating space for MacKinnon and him. Blackwood: fun to watch. I see that in practice. When they do it at the highest level, it is pretty special.

D’Astous snapped one from the high slot at 15:13. Gage Goncalves and Crozier the assists. 5-3. D’Astous told NHL.com the start was not good enough. Down 2-0 against that team, it is hard to come back. We are way better than that.

Necas closed it into the empty net at 17:19. Gabriel Landeskog the helper. 6-3.

Cooper: we had like almost 80 shot attempts, and 45 of them were either blocked or we missed the net. That’s an issue. Bednar called it probably Colorado’s most complete effort of the year, even with a pile of second-period penalties. The AP recap noted the night also featured the league’s longest-tenured coaches, Cooper (March 2013) and Bednar (August 2016).

MacKinnon’s three assists were the 45th three-assist game of his career, tying Joe Sakic for third in Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques history, the NHL notes said. Only Peter Stastny (47) and Peter Forsberg (46) have more. O'Connor played 14:47 with three shots in his season debut after a lower-body injury.

AthX Engine on a 6-3 that still got outshot

AthX Engine (our projection and scoring system) scored MacKinnon at 14.40: one goal, three assists, four shots, one block. Guentzel is 12.20 with a power-play bonus and two PIM. Necas is 10.60. D’Astous is 9.30. Toews is 7.20. Blackwood’s 31-save win is 11.80. Colorado’s club line is 22.20. Tampa Bay’s regulation loss is 0.60 (three goals for, six against, no win).

Fantasy points measure the box. Price is what traders will pay for MacKinnon after 14.40, and for a Lightning club that outshot Colorado by 10 and still left 6-3. They move together. They are not the same number.

Track MacKinnon, Guentzel, Blackwood, and both clubs on the marketplace. Tampa Bay visits Utah on Saturday. Colorado visits Nashville on Sunday.

*Sources: AP recap (ESPN), ESPN box score, NHL.com recap, NHL.com scoreboard, ESPN NHL scoreboard. AthX Engine fantasy points scored from NHL gamecenter box 2026020167. Information only; not financial advice.*