In Denver, the Colorado Avalanche stretched out their shooting muscles and launched 55 shots on the Minnesota Wild net on Thursday night, in a 5-1 win.
Mikko Rantanen potted a pair of goals and picked up four points on the night.
“Tonight was a pretty good night,” Rantanen said. “We were snapping the puck, and that’s what we have to do, move the puck a lot and get it to the net. My linemates (Nathan MacKinnon and Gabriel Landeskog) obviously help a lot. I’m playing with two great players, so that’s the first thing you need to remember.”
Philipp Grubauer made 19 saves to get the win.
Victor Rask scored the lone Wild goal.
“They were really good,” Minnesota head coach Dean Evason said. “They put a lot of heat on us, and we didn’t handle it very well. For whatever reason, we didn’t have our legs, didn’t have our energy, didn’t have the pace that we have normally. Maybe it’s because we were stuck in our zone early. Clearly, the shot totals dictated that.”
MacKinnon and Landeskog added single markers in the win.
“The start tonight was going to be real important,” Colorado head coach Jared Bednar said. “[Minnesota] is a strong starting hockey team. They were 10-1 in their last 30 days when they score first, and I believe we were 9-1, so that first goal was an important one. I thought our guys came out hungry and skating and in attack mode trying to get it. It was a real nice all-around effort. Guys were playing hard on both sides of the puck.”
Joonas Donskoi also scored for the Avs.
“We wanted to leapfrog them,” MacKinnon said. “They can leapfrog us Saturday, so we need to bring our desperation again. Our division’s very tight, and we’re trying to separate ourselves. We’re getting healthy finally, and hopefully in the second half of the year we’ll get lots of wins.”
Cam Talbot made 50 saves in a very busy loss.
“There’s obviously things in a game like that you’re going to have to address, but for the most part that’s a game that you just have to flush and move on,” Talbot said. “You have to have short-term memory after a game like that.”
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