After a long week off the Colorado Avalanche began the away portion of their second round series in Minnesota. The Wild were energized in their home building and with some help on special teams built a lead and never looked back to take this game 5-1 and cut Colorado’s lead in the series to 2-1.
The Game
It was a fairly even start to the game with Colorado receiving the game’s first power play but the visitors came up empty. It took a four-on-four for the game’s first score as Kirill Kaprizov took advantage
of some soft defending and beat Scott Wedgewood who went down too early. Devon Toews took a penalty soon after and while it was four-on-three Quinn Hughes found room above Wedgewood after he dropped his stick to put the Wild up by two.
The second period didn’t start any better for Colorado after the Wild converted on yet another power play. This time Toews tipped the puck and Ryan Hartman batted the rebound in. At this point Jared Bednar opted for Mackenzie Blackwood to enter the game for his first taste of action in 25 days. Wedgewood wasn’t the primary culprit for the 3-0 deficit but clearly a change of momentum was needed.
After investing in future power plays by regularly going to the penalty box the Avalanche were awarded a late period man advantage and Nathan MacKinnon cashed in. It took a Wild player shoving Gabe Landeskog on top of their own goaltender for MacKinnon to have a free look at the open net. The Wild knew this, too, and didn’t challenge the play. Just 20 seconds later, though, Minnesota responded on a delayed penalty from Brock Faber who took advantage of Blackwood misplaying the puck off of his glove and left the back door vacated for an easy rebound score. With a score of 4-1 at the second intermission, the Avalanche certainly had a tough task to get back in the game.
Both teams tried to buckle down in the third period but the Avalanche couldn’t get much going. Two shifts in particular were prolonged stretches in the Avalanche defensive zone. Colorado pulled Blackwood for the extra attacker with over three minutes to go and couldn’t score much less keep possession for very long. Still, Minnesota didn’t score into the empty net until there were three seconds left when Matt Boldy made the score 5-1 and that’s how this game would end.
Takeaways
Special teams was the early story but neither team had much luck scoring five-on five. Colorado ended with 35 shots on goal to Minnesota’s 26 but few were dangerous. The Avalanche second and third lines had some ugly numbers in the advanced stats getting caught out on some long shift and exposed their lack of speed. They will have opportunities to score and make the difference in following games.
Now with a loss it will be interesting to see who Bednar turns to in net for Game 4. Blackwood generally did fine but the loss wasn’t really on Wedgewood so this should really tip their hand as to which goaltender Colorado really wants in net moving forward.
Upcoming
Game 4 in Minnesota on Monday, May 11th at 6 p.m. MT on ESPN.
