John Kreiser
The Minnesota Wild are halfway to the start of their summer vacation after losing 5-2 to the Colorado Avalanche in Game 2 of their Western Conference Second Round series at Ball Arena on Tuesday night.
This one wasn’t a track meet like their 9-6 loss in Game 1 on Saturday. But the end result was the same — a three-goal loss in which the Wild couldn’t stop Avs stars Nathan MacKinnon and Martin Necas. MacKinnon, who finished third in the NHL in scoring during the regular season, had his second straight one-goal, two-assist night, while Necas scored the game’s first goal and set up another.
Gabriel Landeskog, Nicolas Roy and Valeri Nichushkin also scored for the Avs, the NHL’s top team during the regular season. Scott Wedgewood won his sixth game in as many tries, making 29 saves.
The Wild got a first-period goal by Kirill Kaprizov and one with 5:27 left in the third period by Marcus Johansson, but that wasn’t nearly enough against the NHL’s highest-scoring team during the regular season.
The series takes a three-day break before moving to Grand Casino Arena for Game 3 on Saturday. The extra day off is necessitated by the Minnesota Frost’s PWHL playoff games Thursday and Friday. It will give coach John Hynes some more time to try to figure out how to shut down the Avs, who’ve scored 14 goals in the first two games.
Goaltender change doesn’t help Wild in Game 2 loss
The Wild changed goaltenders after their Game 1 loss. Rookie Jesper Wallstedt took a seat and veteran Filip Gustavsson got his first start since April 13. their next-to-last regular-season game. But Gustavsson didn’t fare any better that Wallstedt in the first 10 minutes, allowing goals on the first two shots he faced.
MacKinnon did all the work on the game’s first goal. He raced our of his own zone, down the right side and finding Necas coming late. Necas found a gap in the slot between three defenders and beat Gustavsson with a backhander at 2:51 for a 1-0 lead.
The cheers hadn’t even died down when the Wild took advantage of a Colorado defensive gaffe to tie the score. Cale Makar was way out of position and Ryan Hartman sent Kaprizov in on a breakaway. Minnesota’s all-time playoff goal-scoring leader beat Wedgewood at 2:57 — six seconds after Necas scored — to even the game at 1-1.
The Wild held Colorado without a shot on goal for more than five minutes. But Colorado made it 2-for-2 on Landeskog’s power-play goal at 8:24. Landeskog found a soft spot in the slot and finished off a tic-tac-toe passing play from Makar to Necas to MacKinnon, whose perfect feed set up Colorado’s captain for a 10-foot snap shot that Gustavsson had no chance on.
Minnesota pressed for the tying goal during its first power play after Brock Nelson was sent off for holding at 13:16. The Wild got six high-danger chances during the man-advantage, according to Natural Stat Trick, but Wedgewood stopped them all.
The period ended with Colorado leading 2-1, though the Wild had a 10-7 edge in shots on goal.
Just as they did in the opening 20 minutes, the Avs scored on their first shot of the second period. Minnesota failed to get the puck deep on an attempted zone entry; the Avs took advantage after Russ Colton found Roy coming down the middle. Roy got his shot off quickly and beat Gustavsson at 1:24 for a 3-1 lead.
The Wild had 10 shots again in the second period but generated little consistent offense and didn’t seriously test Wedgewood.
Wedgewood kept Minnesota from getting closer after Nelson took a tripping penalty at 4:20. The Avs didn’t score after Mats Zuccarello was called for tripping at 7:26, but MacKinnon’s power-play one-timer from the left circle at 13:18 boosted the lead to 4-1.
Marcus Johansson got one back at 14:33, but that was as close as Minnesota got. Nichushkin’s empty-netter with five seconds left rubbed a little more salt in the wound.
Key Takeaways after Wild lose 5-2 to Avanlanche in Game 2
Wild’s stars outshone
The Avalanche are getting big production from MacKinnon and Necas. The Wild can’t say the same about many of their top players.
Defenseman Quinn Hughes, who entered the game leading all players in postseason scoring, had a tough night. He played 28:07 but finished minus-1 with no shots on goal, three shot attempts, one hit and one blocked shot. The Avs paid a lot of attention to Minnesota’s top defender — most notably on a huge third-period hit by MacKinnon.
Kaprizov had a goal and a couple of other good chances, but Matt Boldy had no points, finished minus-1 and wasn’t much of a factor. Boldy, the Wild’s biggest scorer in the first round with six goals, has one assist in two games.
The Wild aren’t going to beat an elite team without their top players firing on all cylinders, They weren’t on Tuesday.
Special-teams problems continue
The Wild’s special teams are still dragging them down.
Minnesota’s power play was 2-for-4 in the Wild’s 6-1 win over the Dallas Stars. But it’s done almost nothing since then, a trend that continued against Colorado. Minnesota went 0-for-2, dropping the Wild to 0-for-5 in the series and 2-for-26 in their past seven games.
The penalty-killers, who allowed Dallas to score 10 times on 25 opportunities in the opening round, are faring no better against Colorado. The Avs went 2-for-5 and are 3-for-7 in the first two games. Minnesota’s 13 power-play goals allowed and minus-9 differential are the worst of any team in this year’s playoffs.
Break time
The Wild have to be glad they’ve got an extra day off before Game 3. They’re hoping the off days allow injured Joel Eriksson Ek, one of the NHL’s best two-way centers, to return to the lineup at home.
Hynes will undoubtedly use the time to figure out who he’ll start in goal Saturday. Wallstedt allowed eight goals in Game 1 but carried the Wild past Dallas in the first round. Gustavsson, who carried most of the load during the regular season, allowed a couple of goals on stoppable shots.
Whoever he chooses will have to come up with a big effort in front of the home fans. The Wild are trying to get to the conference final for the first time since 2003.
Stat shots
The Wild are down 2-0 in a series for the ninth time in their history. They won only one of the first eight. That came in 2014, when they lost the first two games on the road but won the series by taking Game 7 in Denver.
The Wild and Avs matched the second-fastest two goals in a Stanley Cup game; the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers scored six seconds apart in Game 2 of the 2012 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals. The record is five seconds set by the Penguins and Buffalo Sabres in Game 3 of the Preliminary Round in 1979.
Colorado matched the Carolina Hurricanes by starting 6-0 in this year’s playoffs. It’s the fifth time in playoffs history where multiple teams have started the postseason with streaks this long.
MacKinnon had his 21st career multiple-point playoff game. That moved him past Hall of Famer (now Avs president) Joe Sakic for the most in franchise history.
Colorado set an NHL record with 12 different goal-scorers within the first two games of any postseason series.
