As far as Black Friday deals go, ticket buyers to Friday’s midday showdown between the NHL’s two hottest teams certainly got their money’s worth.
It may be too early to talk about playoff previews when fans of the Wild and Avalanche are still munching on cold turkey and leftover sweet potatoes, but Minnesota’s 3-2 shootout win over Colorado had all of the markings of a showdown between two teams with designs on meeting again in May.
Mats Zuccarello and Matt Boldy scored in the post-overtime shootout as Minnesota asserted its dramatic and thorough re-entry into the Central Division title race after a sluggish first month of the season.
Kirill Kaprizov had a pair of late second period goals as the Wild rallied from a mid-game deficit, improving to 11-1-1 in November. Colorado has now gone 15 games without a regulation loss.
Jesper Wallstedt’s case for NHL rookie of the year got just a tiny bit stronger, as he made 39 saves and improved to 7-0-2 with the win. He stopped Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar in the shootout
Both teams had early power plays and both goalies were tested before the first media break. In a game where mistakes were rare, the Avalanche jumped on a miscue to take the early lead. Tied up along the boards in the defensive zone, Kaprizov’s no-look pass missed two Wild teammates and went right to the stick of Colorado star Nathan MacKinnon who was alone at the top of the crease. His quick shot resulted in an NHL-best 19th goal of the season.
But Kaprizov atoned for any perceived error just a bit past the midway point of the game. His 200th career goal came with hulking Avalanche defenseman Brent Burns draped all over him, but still unable to stop a Zeev Buium pass from deflecting off Kaprizov and past Wedgewood for the equalizer.
With the goal, Kaprizov passed Zach Parise for third all-time on the Minnesota franchise scoring list. It also snapped a streak of more than 212 minutes Colorado had gone without allowing a goal.
But the Wild star was far from done, and gave Minnesota the lead before the second period was done. Ryan Hartman, who had missed the previous four games with a lower body injury, made an emphatic return when he circled the Colorado net, then fed Kaprizov for a rising shot that beat a sprawling Avalanche goalie Scott Wedgewood.
Gabriel Landeskog scored his third goal of the season in the latter half of the third to tie the game at 2-2.
Wedgewood finished with 35 saves for Colorado, which suffered its only regulation loss of the season on Oct. 25 in Boston. The Avalanche will be back in Minnesota in three weeks for a Dec. 21 rematch versus the Wild.
The Wild complete their holiday weekend back-to-back on Saturday evening with the Buffalo Sabres lone visit to St. Paul this season.
Briefly
Friday’s contest was the 400th career game for Wild forward Yakov Trenin, who assisted on Kaprizov’s second goal. He entered the NHL in 2019 and has spent time with Nashville, Colorado and the Wild since then. Trenin entered Friday’s game leading the NHL in hits with 108 this season.
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