Nathan MacKinnon of Halifax, Nova Scotia recorded his first career National Hockey League playoff hat trick on Wednesday. The superstar center for the Colorado Avalanche who was instrumental in me winning the hardest hockey pool in the country this past season (commissioner is Eric Francis of Rogers Sportsnet), had three goals and one assist for four points in a 6-3 Avalanche win over the St. Louis Blues in game two of the West Division semifinals.
MacKinnon scored his first goal of the game at 18:05 of the first period on the power play from Cale Makar of Calgary, Alberta and Joonas Donskoi. The goal at the time put the Avalanche up 2-0. MacKinnon then scored the game-winning goal at 15:25 of the third period from Devon Toews of Abbotsford, British Columbia and Gabriel Landeskog to put the Avalanche up 4-2. Then with 12 seconds left in the contest, MacKinnon notched his hat trick into an empty net to close out the scoring from Mikko Rantanen and Landeskog.
MacKinnon was one of two Canadian Avalanche players with a multi-point game. The other was Toews.
Colorado meanwhile leads the best out of seven series two games to none. Game three of the series is in St. Louis on Friday.
