DNA applies to hockey. No two players skate the same, although the ideal skating stride is taught universally.

Nathan MacKinnon, the Avalanche’s 22-year-old center and NHL player of the month for November, is an exceptional skater with an extraordinarily powerful stride. If he had a nickname, Two Steps would apply.

That’s all he needs to blow past a defender.

“Fastest skater I’ve ever played with,” linemate Mikko Rantanen said of MacKinnon, who produced 20 points (five goals) in 12 games last month.

MacKinnon, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2013 draft, went straight from juniors to winning the 2014 Calder Trophy as NHL rookie of the year at age 18. He’s in his fifth NHL season, but sometimes still needs to be reminded to use his greatest gift.

“I don’t notice it as much as you guys might. I’m just skating like everyone else,” MacKinnon said. “I might be faster than others, but I try to use it as best as I can. I know it’s an advantage I have. It helps myself and my teammates. It creates space for my linemates, whether that’s backing the D or taking them wide or just getting open in the neutral zone. It’s obviously very helpful. It’s a big part of today’s game.”

A typical NHL player needs four to six steps to attain full speed. But MacKinnon is already utilizing his inside edges and gliding with two swift leg swoops while others are still chopping at the ice like a sprinter. He realized his gift between the ages of 8-10, when he would carry the puck end-to-end and have “no problem scoring a lot of goals” against his childhood peers in Dartmouth, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

In 2014, MacKinnon raced Canadian short-track speed skater Charles Hamelin, a three-time Olympic gold medalist, from blue line to blue line (50 feet). Despite donning full hockey equipment while Hamelin was wearing a cut-resistant suit, MacKinnon won by a stride.

In hindsight, waking up at 5 a.m. to head to the rink for power-skating lessons before school paid off.

“It’s always been a strength of mine since I was a little kid. I think I kind of picked it up more naturally than others but I did work really hard at it,” MacKinnon said. “My dad, thankfully, took me to power skating before school. A lot of kids didn’t like doing that — and I didn’t even like doing it that much — but my dad kept encouraging me and I’m glad I kept with it.”

In power skating, instructors break down your stride, one leg at a time, and concentrate on leg movement, the bend, and edge work.

The secret of MacKinnon’s stride stems from width and back/leg bend. He has used an extraordinarily wide and powerful stride to become one of the NHL’s fastest north-south skaters. The stride mixed with a relatively deep bend makes him sturdier on his skates and harder to knock off the puck when carrying it.

“His first couple steps, he can get to full speed in a hurry and there’s just a handful of guys around the league who can do it the way he does it,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “What it does for us is, he’s always one stride away — every time he touches the puck, he has the ability to break away and make something happen. I think he’s dangerous every time he’s on the ice. He’s so explosive. If you delay for one second in the wrong area, he has the ability to skate right by you and make something happen.”

MacKinnon, who also is a great stick-handler and shooter, works in the off-season with Andy O’Brien, the Pittsburgh Penguins‘ director of sport science and performance. MacKinnon was introduced to O’Brien by Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, a fellow Nova Scotian. O’Brien said MacKinnon has all the gifts of an elite skater.

“Physiologically, he’s extremely powerful, has great limb speed and a lever system built for stride length,” O’Brien wrote in an email. “Typically, players have one or two of those characteristics, but it’s very rare to see a player with all three.”

MacKinnon made his first NHL All-Star appearance last season and was convincingly defeated by Edmonton’s Connor McDavid in a skills competition skating race. It was a circular race, and MacKinnon’s wide stride doesn’t compare well to McDavid’s short stride in turns; McDavid is thought to be the world’s best all-around skater.

But McDavid lacks MacKinnon’s power. That power, Avalanche trainer Casey Bond said, comes from the player’s mental makeup.

“He’s an explosive guy. He’s very, very hardwired,” Bond said. “I know he works hard in the summer to be able to stay in that deep skating position and be powerful from it. A lot of other players can’t sit in that position and create power on a consistent basis like him.”

MacKinnon might have given a McDavid a better race if he would’ve put on the breaks, stopped and then re-started while McDavid was turning. MacKinnon and McDavid are equally dominant in carrying the puck through the neutral zone or accepting a pass in that area to force defenders to back up and not try to hold their blue line. Rantanen said it took some time getting used to playing with MacKinnon, because of his speed.

“With Nate, you try to find him in the neutral zone quickly because he’s not there too long. If he’s in full speed, you want to give it to him because nine times out of 10, he takes it into the O-zone and we have full possession,” Rantanen said. “It’s a big advantage for us, for sure. It’s just fun to have a guy like that in the lineup. He’s burning defensemen all the time, or they’re backing off and turning their hips to try to defend him.” Related Articles Avalanche’s Cale Makar wins Calder Trophy as NHL rookie of the year

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Bednar uses MacKinnon in all situations. Entering weekend play MacKinnon averaged 19 minutes, 27 seconds of ice time per game, second behind the suspended Gabe Landeskog (20:25). In addition to being the first-line center, MacKinnon is on the No. 1 power play, is a primary penalty killer and leads the team in faceoffs at 52.45 percent. He’s also the drop man on the power play — the guy who lags behind the play and accepts a drop pass before driving through the neutral zone or making a pass to a winger.

He does it all because he has all the tools, and he builds everything off his world-class skating.

“It allows him to be as good defensively as he is offensively because he knows if the puck pops out or he wins a puck battle, that he has the ability to explode up the ice,” Bednar said. “He’s a committed defensive player and he can turn it to an offensive player in a split second.”

A split second is the difference most players constantly seek to get ahead on the play. For MacKinnon, it’s always available.

NHL spotlight

Ryan O’Reilly, C, Sabres

When: The Avalanche concludes a five-game homestand Tuesday against the Buffalo Sabres at the Pepsi Center.

What’s up: O’Reilly, the former Avs center who was traded to Buffalo on June 26, 2015, entered the weekend as the Sabres’ third-leading scorer but was a team-worst minus-17, third worst in the NHL.

Background: Colorado selected O’Reilly early in the second round (33rd overall) in the 2009 draft. He played five full seasons with the Avs, plus 29 games in the 2012-13 lockout-shortened campaign in which he held out because of contract demands. O’Reilly’s best season was 2013-14, when he had a team-high 28 goals and committed just one penalty in 80 games en route to winning the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy. O’Reilly slipped to 17 goals in 82 games in 2014-15, and because the Avs feared they couldn’t re-sign him after 2015-16, he was traded to Buffalo along with Avalanche winger Jamie McGinn for forward Mikhail Grigorenko, defenseman Nikita Zadorov, prospect J.T. Compher and a 2015 second-round draft pick. Following the trade, Buffalo signed O’Reilly to a seven-year, $52.5 million contract that kicked in at the beginning of last season. O’Reilly is tied as the NHL’s 20th highest-paid player with a $7.5 million cap hit.

Chambers’ take: I admire’s O’Reilly’s work ethic but don’t believe his self-worth and salary demands were a fair representation of who his is. Fact is, O’Reilly hasn’t been a plus player since his rookie season in 2009-10, when he served as a third- or fourth-line center for the Avs. Like 2009 draft classmate Matt Duchene, O’Reilly is just a solid NHL offensive player who thought he was much better than he was in Colorado.