Joonas Donskoi of Raahe, Finland recorded his second career National Hockey League hat trick on Wednesday for the Colorado Avalanche in a 9-3 hammering over the Arizona Coyotes. Donskoi also led the Avalanche in points (four), and shots on goal (six).
All three of Donskoi’s goals came in the first period. He opened the scoring with a goal four minutes and four seconds into the game with an even-strength marker from Tyson Jost of St. Albert, Alberta, and Samuel Girard of Roberval, Quebec. Donskoi then put the Avalanche up 4-1 on a goal from Ryan Graves of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and Valeri Nichushkin of Chelyabinsk, Russia at 6:04 of the first period. Then Donskoi’s hat trick came at 7:31 of the first period from Mikko Rantanen of Nousiainen, Finland, and captain Gabriel Landeskog of Stockholm, Sweden on the power play to put the Avalanche up 5-1.
Donskoi was one of seven Avalanche players to have a multi-point game. The others were Landeskog (two goals and one assist for three points), Rantanen (one goal and two assists for three points), Andre Burakovsky of Klagenfurt, Austria (two goals), Pierre-Edouard Bellemare of Le Blanc-Mesnil, France (one goal and one assist), Nathan MacKinnon (two assists), and Girard (two assists).
Interestingly, Donskoi’s first career NHL hat trick came on a night that the Avalanche also scored nine goals. It came on November 7, 2019, in a 9-4 Avalanche win over the Nashville Predators.
With the hat trick, Donskoi now leads the National Hockey League in shooting percentage at 30%. He now has 15 goals on the season in only 50 shots. Donskoi also has 13 assists, 28 points, is a 14, with six penalty minutes, six power-play points, two game-winning goals, nine faceoff wins, 17 blocked shots, 10 hits, 15 takeaways, and six giveaways.
The Avalanche now leads the Central Division with 50 points. They have one more point than the second-place Vegas Golden Knights.
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