The Minnesota Wild hosted the Colorado Avalanche for their first season meeting on Thursday evening, Jan. 9. The Wild were still without Kirill Kaprizov, Brock Faber, Jared Spurgeon, and Jakub Lauko. They also added Jonas Brodin to that list after he blocked a shot in their win over the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday, Jan. 7. The Avalanche were without Samuel Girard, Scott Wedgewood, Valeri Nichushkin, and several other players.
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Filip Gustavsson was in as Marc-André Fleury was questionable with an illness but did make it to back up Gustavsson. Mackenzie Blackwood was in the other net for the Avalanche. The Avalanche started things, and while the Wild had hope initially, the Avalanche ran away 6-1. This moved the Wild to 26-12-4 and the Avalanche to 26-16-1.
Game Recap
The Avalanche opened the scoring just under four minutes into the game as Logan O’Connor got one past Gustavsson to make it 1-0, and the lone assist went to Josh Manson. The scoreboard was quiet for a while until late in the first when the Avalanche capitalized on a turnover pass from behind the Wild’s net that went right on the stick of Ross Colton. He threw it past a sprawling Gustavsson and made it 2-0. However, the Wild found a way to bounce back, as Zach Bogosian scored with Frédérick Gaudreau’s and Yakov Trenin’s assists, making it 2-1 as the first period ended.
The second had some close calls for both sides, but the Avalanche were the first to find the back of the net with a goal by Mikko Rantanen to take a 3-1 lead. Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin assisted him. That was the only scoring in the second, and the Avalanche took the lead into the third period.
The Avalanche pulled ahead by three goals at the beginning of the third period as Parker Kelly beat Gustavsson and was assisted by Joel Kiviranta and O’Connor to make it 4-1. The Avalanche put up an avalanche of goals in the third as Artturi Lehkonen scored to make it 5-1 and was assisted by Manson. They added another goal shortly after to make it 6-1, with their superstar MacKinnon getting his first goal of the night with Droiun and Rantanen getting the assists.
The Wild will head on the road for a quick two-game trip out west, where they’ll face the San Jose Sharks on Saturday, Jan.11, and then the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday, Jan. 12. The Avalanche will remain on the road for one more game where they’ll face the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday as well.
