The Colorado Avalanche has many bounce-back candidates, none bigger than MacKinnon. He turns 21 on Sept. 1 and signed a seven-year contract July 8, so expectations are high after he missed the final 10 games of last season. It was the second straight year that MacKinnon's season was cut short because of injury, he had a low shooting percentage (7.3 in 2014-15; 8.6 in 2015-16), and Colorado missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
MacKinnon had a solid power-play point output (16 in 72 games) and set an NHL career high in shots on goal (245), but had a negative plus-minus again (minus-4) and failed to match his career bests in goals (24), assists (39), plus-minus (plus-20) and PPP (17) from his rookie season of 2013-14.