Minnesota Wild gut out victory over high-powered Avalanche
How gutty was the Minnesota Wild's win over the Colorado Avalanche Tuesday night?
The Avalanche entered the contest on a six-game win streak with a loaded, mostly healthy roster led by the NHL's leading scorer, Nathan MacKinnon. The Wild were going in the opposite direction.
Plagued by injuries, Minnesota had gone 10-13-4 over the past two months, including losses in five of the past seven games, to fall to into a wild-card spot.
The result? Minnesota gutting out a 2-1 shootout victory.
Mats Zuccarrello scored the lone Wild goal in regulation and then he flicked his wrists and fired a puck past Colorado goalie Mackenzie Blackwood to begin the shootout.
After Filip Gustavsson stymied MacKinnon's shootout attempt, Matt Boldy dazzled with a backhanded shot that went top shelf to beat Blackwood for a 2-0 shootout lead.
Gustavsson, who stopped 27 of 28 shots in regulation and overtime, then sealed the win with another save on Colorado's do-or-die attempt.
“It was a game that we knew it was important for us. I think we had to put the game on the ice that we did tonight,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “The thing is, to me, that’s a good team all year long regardless of who’s in our who’s out of our lineup.
"When we play a strong game that is focused on attention to detail and good awareness and we have a strong compete level and we get that throughout the lineup, that’s when we’re a hard team to play against. We’ve been kind of building towards that. I would say coming out of the break that was probably our best game, complete game of what we like to see. So, it was good."
With 78 points, the Wild (37-24-4) are eight points ahead of Calgary in the wild-card standings, and just three points behind Colorado for third place in the Central Division.
Up next: Wild vs. New York Rangers, 7 p.m. Thursday
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