Avalanche’s Nathan MacKinnon hits career low point after Golden Knights sweep

The Colorado Avalanche are out of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Nathan MacKinnon and his teammates entered the Western Conference Finals expecting to make a push for the Stanley Cup Final. Instead, they have been swept by the Vegas Golden Knights in rather stunning fashion.

The Golden Knights won Game 4 by the score of 2-1 on Tuesday night. Vegas is off to the Stanley Cup Final for the third time in franchise history. Meanwhile, the Avalanche are headed home, and MacKinnon arguably shoulders a good amount of the blame for this result.

MacKinnon finished as Colorado’s point leader, scoring seven goals and 15 points throughout the postseason. However, he managed just two assists in the West Final against Vegas. This is the first time in his career that MacKinnon has failed to score a single goal in a playoff series, according to Colorado Hockey Now reporter Aarif Deen.

The Avalanche star did get off to a rather slow start in the playoffs this year. In round one against the Los Angeles Kings, he scored four points in four games. However, three of those points came in Game 4. It was a much better turnout in the second round, as he scored seven goals against the Minnesota Wild.

Unfortunately, the Hart Memorial Trophy candidate did not play as well as he needed to. The Avalanche are headed home after dominating for so much of the 2025-26 campaign. And they will certainly need to learn what went wrong and how to correct things this summer if they want to return to Cup contention in 2027.

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