Although I agree, I think it’s more than just playing with MacKinnon. Necas is clearly also benefitting from the system and the Avs’ style of play, in contrast with Carolina’s, in which Rantanen is languishing.

Other people have hit on this as well, but a positive side effect of having the full top six is the threat of a healthy scratch for the bottom six. Any “passengers” on those lines will find themselves in the press box moving forward, and you could see that in their aggressiveness throughout the game. That was rewarded for the fourth line – and their goal looked more like one you would see a top two line score. Just a thing of beauty for a hard working group! I think maybe we’ll see the same lineup against Minnesota, or maybe Parssinen comes in for Wood or Kiviranta to keep a sort of rotation going. But regardless, I think the healthy scratch threat should continue to motivate those depth forwards.