Nathan MacKinnon has dropped the gloves twice in six games, and the second one left the reigning MVP of 2023-24 bleeding onto the ice in Dallas. He cross-checked Roope Hintz, the two stars squared up between the circles in front of the Colorado net, and Hintz, fighting for the first time in his NHL career, got the better of it. He landed a series of rights before MacKinnon could answer, one of them caught MacKinnon flush on the nose, and the Avalanche center went to the locker room to get stitched up before coming back out. Something is eating at him, and Colorado should be worried about it.
The history is right there, and the Stars didn't bother hiding it. Back on March 2 last season, MacKinnon overpowered Hintz in a corner in Dallas, and Hintz tore his hamstring, missed the final 20 games of the season and the entire 2026 postseason. Stars coach Glen Gulutzan connected every dot afterward. "I knew right from the start he looked agitated with the whole thing," Gulutzan said. "Obviously, with what happened last year at the end of the year, and Roope missing the playoffs, I think that was a blow for him. Good for him." MacKinnon waved it off: "It was kind of an innocent play last year. I don't know. You'd have to ask him, I guess."
Start with the miss nobody has let him forget. At the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics, MacKinnon fired at a wide-open net with Canada tied in the gold-medal game, hit the side of the mesh, and watched Canada lose 2-1 in overtime to the United States. The internet turned it into a summer of mockery. He's come back this fall playing like a man with a grievance, and that heat found a convenient target in Hintz, the guy on the other side of a grudge he'd rather call innocent.
This is what you want from a franchise player: a superstar who stands up for himself, two actual stars throwing hands instead of a pair of fourth-line enforcers. The crowd ate it up. And if you're going to roll your eyes at roster spots handed to players whose only skill is punching, you can't turn around and treat a star trading punches as a highlight. The theater doesn't change the math.
MacKinnon carries a cap hit north of $12.6 million. Through six games he had 12 points, including two assists on the night he got cut open. Colorado's season runs through him and nobody else is close. He's now fought a 6-foot-3, 217-pound forward and, in the home opener, Brandt Clarke. He is 6-foot, 200 pounds, and he is the one piece this roster cannot replace. One of those punches lands a little differently and it's a broken hand or a concussion, and Colorado's whole year tilts. He's broken his nose more than once over the years already. He does not need to go collecting more of them for sport.
Colorado won this one 3-2, with Martin Nečas scoring twice in the second period, and they get the rematch the very next night. Fine. But the fire that looks thrilling in October is the same fire that puts your best player in the box, or the trainer's room, in April. Gulutzan can say "good for him" all he wants, because an opponent getting MacKinnon to fight is an opponent winning. The person who has to pull MacKinnon out of this is MacKinnon.
