MacKinnon’s home point streak hits 30, Avalanche shut out Blackhawks

Cale Makar and Jonathan Drouin each had a goal and an assist, and Zach Parise scored for the Avalanche (38-20-5), who have won three of their past four games. Justus Annunen made 37 saves for his second straight shutout, the first of which came in a 5-0 win at Chicago on Thursday.

“The boys were playing awesome in front of me, so it’s all a huge help from them,” Annunen said. “It’s fun to play, and [I’m] getting better every game. So, trying to do my best and earn my spot here.”

Petr Mrazek made 32 saves for the Blackhawks (15-41-5), who have lost seven straight overall (0-5-2) and are 0-21-1 in their past 22 road games.

“I thought we played a pretty good first period, but we unfortunately made two mistakes and turned pucks over, and you can’t do it against this team,” Chicago coach Luke Richardson said. “They made us pay, but we still tried to hang in and played pretty much a good solid second. But again, just too much time in the [defensive] zone, and against this team, they’re explosive and they made us pay again.”

MacKinnon made it 1-0 at 12:31 of the first period. Jason Dickinson tried to intercept Devon Toews’ pass, but MacKinnon skated in on net and beat Mrazek with a snap shot under his blocker.

“We’re fortunate because we get to see him every day,” Avalanche defenseman Jack Johnson said. “Obviously, his talent and everything is the obvious things, but the stuff that nobody gets to see is his preparation and everything to be at his best every night. Those are the things that we get see behind the scenes and we appreciate.”

Drouin extended the lead to 2-0 at 17:22 with a wrist shot from the right circle on a 2-on-1.

“We did some good things tonight, no question,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “Some of the things that we talked about this morning within our attack and some O-zone play stuff, I thought we were really good at. I thought they paid attention to it. We got rewarded at least once doing some of the things that we talked about, if not more.”