Nathan MacKinnon revealed harshly - Joonas Donskoi: "It wasn't easy"

Nathan MacKinnon is known in NHL circles as a hot-headed superstar, whose verbal tirades target journalists and teammates alike.

Joonas Donskoi, who played alongside MacKinnon on the Colorado Avalanche from 2019 to 2021, admits that MacKinnon was a challenging teammate.

– Sometimes it goes a bit overboard. The guy really loves hockey and does everything for it, but sometimes the feedback can be pretty harsh. The feedback was quite direct and tough for the guy from Raahe if the passes didn’t connect, Donskoi says on the Kimanttia podcast.

– It wasn’t easy to play with him, let’s put it that way. He goes overboard, he tells everyone directly what he thinks.

MacKinnon is also known among his teammates as quite the food police, who swears by a dairy-free and gluten-free diet.

– MacKinnon controls quite a bit of what others eat on that team.

According to Donskoi, MacKinnon rarely takes advice from other players. During the Finnish player’s time with the Avalanche, there were only two players who managed to keep the superstar mostly in line.

– Mikko (Rantanen) and Gabriel (Landeskog). Mostly Landeskog, and that’s why he is so important to the team. Now that Landeskog has been out for several years and came back this year, it has surely shown. Landeskog keeps that package pretty well together, Donskoi sees.

The Avalanche secured their spot in the NHL playoffs as the first team by defeating the Chicago Blackhawks in the early hours of Saturday. The team still has 14 regular-season games left to play.