The Minnesota Wild’s goalie change didn’t help all that much. For the second consecutive game, the Colorado Avalanche scored a flurry of goals early, this time defeating the Wild 5-2 on Tuesday with Filip Gustavsson between the pipes. Colorado leads the second-round series 2-0 and is a perfect 6-0 in the postseason.
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“Much better tonight,” head coach Jared Bednar said, “Still made a couple mistakes for sure, things we can continue to clean up to tighten things up. But I thought the commitment was there, the details were much better in all situations.”
Martin Necas, Gabe Landeskog, Nic Roy, and Nathan MacKinnon scored for the Avalanche, the first three coming in the first 21:24 of play. Valeri Nichushkin later added an empty-netter. The Avs put 22 shots on Gustavsson, who gave up three goals on the first eight he faced before settling in. Colorado kept riding with Scott Wedgewood, and he made 29 saves to recover from the six goals he gave up in Game 1.
Wedgewood surrendered just one goal on 29 shots in the final 57 minutes of action.
“I thought there wasn’t a guy on our roster that wasn’t better tonight than the other night,” Bednar said. “And he certainly was. We started from the goaltender out.”
MacKinnon also had two assists, while Necas and Landeskog had one, each to also finish with multiple points. Brett Kulak had two helpers.
The Avs broke an NHL record with 12 different goal scorers through the first two games of a series. They’ve found the back of the net 14 times against the Wild. In the opening round, Minnesota gave up only 15 to the Dallas Stars in six games.
Cale Makar and MacKinnon are the only Avalanche goal scorers with more than one. They each have two.
“The whole 23-man roster that we carry is deep,” Wedgewood said. “Parker Kelly is playing the second line near the end of the year. Ross Colton comes in and out. You’ve got [Joel] Kiviranta not playing, which is kind of crazy if you really think about a team not using him.”
MacKinnon was flying up and down the ice in this one. On the Avalanche’s first goal, he went speeding up the ice along the boards, dropped a pass to Necas upon entering the offensive zone, and the winger sent a backhander past Gustavsson on Colorado’s first shot.
The Wild managed to respond an impressive six seconds later. Kirill Kaprizov got a pass from Ryan Hartman that sprung him all alone, and he got his first of the series on a slick shot past Wedgewood at 2:57.
Several minutes later, Yakov Trenin was called for high-sticking, sending Colorado to the power play for the first time. Fifteen seconds into the man-advantage, Landeskog finished a tic-tac-toe play that went from Necas, to MacKinnon, to Landeskog in front of the net for the finish at 8:24. It was Colorado’s second goal on two shots.
The Avs carried a 2-1 lead into the break, killing a Wild power play in the process. They also got outshot 10-7.
In the second, Colorado had the better jump early, and scored again on their first shot of the frame. Ross Colton sent a pass to Roy, who beat Gustavsson clean on the Avalanche’s eighth shot.
Colton was a healthy scratch for the first two games of the playoffs. In both games of the second round, he’s been the primary set-up man for the eventual game winner.
“He’s bought into what we’re trying to do here and I know he cares,” Bednar said of Colton. “I made the decision I made in the first series for reasons I believe in, and he’s playing right now and playing well. That’s what we need.”
The Avalanche didn’t allow a goal in the second period. It’s the only scoreless period from either team through the first two games.
In the third, another power play led to yet another tally. The Avs were 2-for-5 on the man advantage, this time it was MacKinnon finishing a one-timer off a setup from Nazem Kadri.
Minnesota responded 1:05 later, but that was all they could get. Nichushkin buried the empty-net goal with five seconds remaining.
Good: Shutting It Down In the Second
The second period was Colorado’s best of the series. By far. The early goal from Roy gave Bednar’s club a comfortable two-goal lead. From that point on, they checked well, limited Minnesota’s opportunities, and shut things down.
This was the aforementioned period where the Avalanche didn’t allow a goal. Minnesota did well at five-on-five all throughout the evening. But not enough to break through as often as they wanted.
Bad: The Quick Goal From Kaprizov
It felt like we were headed for another crazy back-and-forth game early in the first period. The Avs got the opening goal, and the Kaprizov response just six seconds later felt like more of what we had seen in Game 1. Thankfully for Colorado, it wasn’t the case.
Kudos to the Wild, because both Mats Zuccarello and Ryan Hartman did an excellent job with one-touches to get the puck to Kaprizov behind both Cale Makar and Devon Toews.
Scoring a goal six seconds after a faceoff at center ice is impressive for Minnesota. Not so much for Colorado.
The fact that this was the only goal they surrendered is a massive improvement on Game 1.
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