‘There Were So Many Things That I Did Wrong’: Nathan MacKinnon Goes From Naive NHL Rookie To 1,000-Point Club

Nathan MacKinnon (Matt Blewett-Imagn Images)

Dig a little deeper into Nathan MacKinnon’s arrival at the NHL’s 1,000-point plateau, and some impressive details stand out.

When only 100 players in the NHL’s entire 108-year history have reached that milestone, it’s incredible that while MacKinnon is already in his 12th NHL season, he’s also still in his 20s. He has plenty of runway left in what’s already a Hall of Fame-level career, and he may not even have peaked yet.

This season, MacKinnon was named MVP at February’s 4 Nations Face-Off. He’s also on track to win his first-career scoring title. That puts him in the pole position to become the first back-to-back Hart Trophy winner since Alex Ovechkin in 2008 and 2009.

With a Sept. 1 birthday, MacKinnon was one of the youngest players in his draft class when the Colorado Avalanche selected him first overall in 2013 — more than two months before he turned 18. That didn’t stop him from seizing an NHL roster spot in his first training camp, skating in all 82 games, and winning the Calder Trophy with 130 of 137 first-place votes after leading all rookies with 63 points.

MacKinnon’s fierce focus and phenomenal wheels were obvious from the jump, but the level of success he’s achieved was far from guaranteed.

He went through a classic sophomore slump, with 38 points in 64 games before a broken foot ended his second season ended in March 2015. That year, the Avalanche also missed the playoffs for the first of three-straight seasons. By 2016-17, Jared Bednar’s first year as coach, Colorado had slid to last place in the NHL with just 48 points.

That’s just one point more than the San Jose Sharks managed last year, and 11 fewer than the Chicago Blackhawks collected when they won the 2023 NHL draft lottery. So MacKinnon was truly speaking from experience earlier this week when he offered a vote of confidence to Connor Bedard.

THEHOCKEYNEWS.COMNathan MacKinnon Has Intense Confidence In Connor BedardThe Chicago Blackhawks took on the Colorado Avalanche on Monday night and they played a solid game. The difference in the game, besides Scott Wedgewood in the net for Colorado, was the playmaking of Nathan MacKinnon. 

“He’s a 19-year-old kid, and he’s close to a point a game,” MacKinnon told Mark Lazerus of The Athletic. I’d have killed for that when I was 19. I had like 30 points. He’s doing great.”

While Bedard is the centerpiece of the Blackhawks’ offense, MacKinnon ranked fourth in scoring on his team as a rookie behind Matt Duchene, Gabriel Landeskog and Ryan O’Reilly — all just a few years older. Jarome Iginla’s arrival in his second season provided coach Patrick Roy with another dangerous offensive weapon and power-play option.

“I wasn’t the guy by any means,” MacKinnon said to The Athletic. “There was a lot of learning, a lot of difficulties, obviously. Everything was new and everything was different. It feels like another career, honestly, it’s a long time ago now. But I remember it really well. I had a lot of fun, but there were so many things that I did wrong. So many things.”

There were also some successes in those early days. Skating with his friend and mentor Sidney Crosby, he won a gold medal at the 2015 World Championship, where Canada went undefeated. And at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, MacKinnon was a standout for the U-23 Team North America — the group whose speed, skill and drive formed the template for the style of game that we see in today’s NHL.

In his fifth NHL season at age 22, MacKinnon figured everything out. In 2017-18, he exploded for 97 points and led the league with 12 game-winning goals. The Avalanche returned to the playoffs, and he finished second to Taylor Hall in a tight Hart Trophy race.

He was a Hart finallist two more times before he lifted the Stanley Cup in 2022, at age 26. In 2023, he logged his first of three-straight 100-point seasons. In 2024, he pulled off the double by winning the Hart and the Ted Lindsay Award, voted by the players. And this year, he currently holds a five-point lead over Leon Draisaitl in the Art Ross race.

MacKinnon is the second player this season to hit the 1,000-point milestone, after Connor McDavid became the fourth-fastest (659 games) and fourth-youngest (27 years, 306 days) to reach the mark on Nov. 14, 2024.

MacKinnon needed 856 games, ranking him 24th. But at 29 years and 190 days, he’s the 12th-youngest to get there and the second-youngest active player behind only McDavid. He got there three days quicker than Crosby, who was 29 years and 193 days old when he hit the mark in his 757th game on Feb. 16, 2017.

McDavid blew us all away when he needed just 58 games and 10 months to get from 900 points (Jan 3, 2024) to 1,000 (Nov. 14, 2024) — the fourth-fewest games in NHL history.

MacKinnon needed barely five months — and 64 games — to hit 1,000 on March 10, 2025. He started the season with his 900th point in Colorado’s season opener against the Vegas Golden Knights back on Oct. 9, 2024, so that’s the sixth-fewest games in NHL history. He falls just behind Marcel Dionne (63 games) and ahead of Steve Yzerman and Mark Messier (both 65 games).

THEHOCKEYNEWS.COMIs Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl The Runaway Hart Trophy Winner? (What About The Selke?)Edmonton Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch doesn’t have a say in the matter, but if he did he knows which player would receive his vote for the Hart Trophy this season.

The 1,000-point club should also welcome more new members next season.

Brad Marchand is currently at 976 points, Nikita Kucherov is at 965, and Leon Draisaitl and Jamie Benn are both at 947. Kucherov and Draisaitl are on pace to get there in fewer games played than MacKinnon, but both will be into their 30s. The Tampa Bay Lightning sniper is currently at 786 games, while the Edmonton Oilers ace is at 783.