In Denver, the Colorado Avalanche pushed their home winning streak to 14 games with a 4-3win over the Minnesota Wild on Monday.
Mikko Rantanen opened the scoring for a 1-0 lead for the Avs, and added the deciding goal in the skills competition.
Nathan MacKinnon had a goal and two points in the win.
Colorado improved to 25-8-3
“We were killing teams for a while there every night, so it’s important for us to be in these tight games,” MacKinnon said. “Last year we didn’t have many tight games, we beat a lot of teams really bad all year so in the playoffs, it didn’t help us. We’re in high-pressure situations against really good teams. Up 2-1 going into the third we could have done a better job, but they’re a really good team, they’re desperate. Definitely, 6-on-5, we’d like to close it out.”
Darcy Kuemper got the start for the Avs but left the game with an apparent injury in the middle frame. He made 12 saves through nearly 30 minutes of play.
“[Kuemper] wasn’t good enough to come back in the game, so I don’t know where he’s going to be at,” Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said. “We’ll see tomorrow how he responds.”
Pavel Francouz made 25 saves in relief.
Kirill Kaprizov hit for a pair of goals for the Wild.
Minnesota fell to 22-10-3.
The Wild trailed 2-0 after the first period, Kevin Fiala cut into the lead with 33 seconds gone in the second period.
“They had too many Grade-A chances, too many shots,” Fiala said. “They could have scored so many goals in the first period, I thought, and Kaapo just saved us and kept us in the game. … We are much better team than we were in the first period, and we came out and we scored a goal right away and then we kept on going I felt like and got better and better. And in the third, even better.”
Rantanen and Alex Newhook staked the Avs to the 2-0 lead in the first period.
Kaapo Kahkonen made 35 saves in the Wild loss.
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