DENVER — Preoccupation with retaliation endangered the Colorado Avalanche’s franchise-record 16-game home win streak Wednesday night, but Colorado came back to beat the Boston Bruins in overtime, 4-3.

Captain Gabriel Landeskog tied the game with 37 seconds left in regulation, and defenseman Cale Makar scored the winner.

An injury to star Nathan MacKinnon less than 2 1/2 minutes in colored the rest of the game. MacKinnon was the one taking the puck out of the Avalanche zone. Taylor Hall’s shoulder sent MacKinnon’s own stick into his face, and the Avalanche forward spun down to the ice.

As the ice crew cleaned up, officials reviewed the hit and decided on a minor penalty for interference. The Avalanche failed to score on the ensuing power play. MacKinnon (upper body) didn’t return to the game, and coach Jared Bednar guessed he wouldn’t travel to Chicago for the next game Friday.

Landeskog said he looked at the hit later and didn’t think it was “that bad.”

“At the end of the day, when one of your best friends and teammates and ultimately your best player gets hit like that in the neutral zone, you’ve just got to make sure that next time anybody thinks about doing that, they have to pay a price,” Landeskog said. “There’s going to be some consequences with that.

“It doesn’t have to be a dirty play for us to feel that way. It’s just the way it us. Hall didn’t want to answer for it, and that’s unfortunate. Hope Nate’s OK.”

From Bednar’s thoughts on the Hall hit… pic.twitter.com/Pk7wpIwcjh

— Kate Shefte (@KateShefte) January 27, 2022

Kurtis MacDermid’s usual response would be to drop the gloves with someone in MacKinnon’s defense, but he went the nontraditional route Wednesday. He took a shot from the top of the faceoff circles and gave Colorado a 1-0 lead. It was his first goal in an Avalanche jersey.

Landeskog, MacKinnon’s linemate, said he wanted to fight Hall but that Hall declined. Landeskog made his displeasure known anyway, nearly sending Hall headfirst into his own bench during the second period and then pushing him into the Colorado bench on the same shift. Erik Johnson also hassled Hall, only more blatantly, and it wound up costing his team.

Johnson cross-checked Hall to the ice five times in a row behind the Avalanche net. Samuel Girard and Andre Burakovsky were already in the penalty box, and the Bruins had a minute-long 5-on-3. Charlie Coyle scored during the man advantage, and two seconds after Johnson exited the box, Brad Marchand made it 3-1 Bruins.

“It’s mistakes like that mistake that cost you games,” Bednar said.

Girard scored his fifth of the season midway through the third period to close the gap to one.

“Desperation level went up,” Landeskog said.

Boston goaltender Linus Ullmark made 37 saves including two in overtime. Colorado’s Darcy Kuemper stopped 29 shots.

The 17-game run at Ball Arena is the fifth-longest home winning streak in NHL history, breaking a tie with the 1975-76 Bruins.  The record is 23, set by Detroit during the 2011-12 season.

The Avalanche last lost at home on Nov. 3 to Columbus 5-4 in overtime. They are 13-0-1 this month and have an NHL-best 30 wins.

On the other side: Colorado Springs native and Bruins defenseman Brandon Carlo, who attended Pine Creek High School, took his warmup stretches in front of a group of family and friends. The last time he and the Bruins took on the Avalanche in his home state was Oct. 10, 2019.

“I’ll be lining up for a draw, look in the stands for a second and recognize somebody I haven’t seen in a couple years,” Carlo said earlier Wednesday. “It’s pretty funny and I enjoy it a lot.”

In July, Carlo signed a six-year contract extension with the Bruins worth a total of $24.6 million. The former Colorado Thunderbirds player was the fifth-highest-paid Bruin entering the 2021-22 season.

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